My favorite I've seen personally was a science toy which supposedly lit a light by generating a current with a magnet sliding thru a coil of wire. Taking it apart there was a hidden watch battery lighting the light! Not sure if it was cheaper to fake it or if they couldn't get the real version to work reliably. It was funny though, a faked science demo product.
Not a fake, but a clever improvisation: I bought a large woodturning lathe once ( Powermatic 3520, for those who care).
The lathe was shipped inside a heavy duty cardboard box. The box was strapped down to a pallet. When I cut the straps and lifted the box off the pallet, the lathe was bolted to the pallet. OK, great so far.
However, because the pallet has gaps and, I guess, salty sea air could get in that way, the pallet had been covered w a big sheet of metalized mylar. Very clever!
...and the metalized mylar was from a big roll of as-yet-uncut ramen wrappers. No English text, but covered in Chinese characters and pictures of steaming hot ramen.
I would love to meet the Chinese factory owner/manager who makes the calculus on this stuff. "No no, walnuts are too expensive. Let's take walnut shells, fake walnut shells, and put rocks in them. That's much easier and cheaper."
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 37.8 ms ] threadThe lathe was shipped inside a heavy duty cardboard box. The box was strapped down to a pallet. When I cut the straps and lifted the box off the pallet, the lathe was bolted to the pallet. OK, great so far.
However, because the pallet has gaps and, I guess, salty sea air could get in that way, the pallet had been covered w a big sheet of metalized mylar. Very clever!
...and the metalized mylar was from a big roll of as-yet-uncut ramen wrappers. No English text, but covered in Chinese characters and pictures of steaming hot ramen.
...or...
When labor is cheaper than something that grows on trees.