Discs and the quality issues...

[crabapillar]

I know this has been discussed at varying levels many times; but when will it improve? I started playing going on three years ago and I definitely have bought more than my share of discs in that time and some of the quality issues I've come across are beyond unacceptable and I'm not sure how we as consumer's allow it to pass.

Now I'm not talking about one of the common issues in that a disc flies way more overstable than its flight numbers, I'm talking about the sometimes very visible quality issues. With all the manufacturer's being behind in production over the last year I feel like these issues have become even more frequent. Some of the recent examples I've come across are...

A Teebird that is stamped as GStar but it's clearly Star Plastic.
A Gold Line River that has a massive tooling mark around more than 50% of the rim.
A ESP Hornet that has more humps/bumps on the top than my most beat in midrange.
A Champion Banshee that's penned 160, but on a scale is 171g.

These are the most glaring I've come across lately and I've seen quite a few others that are not as extreme, I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are on this? These are very obvious issues that should and would be caught if there were any types of quality measures in place to check discs before they leave the factory.

I feel like this is especially an issue today as most physical retailer's are still closed and everything is done through the mail. What do you do when you receive a disc that you would have never bought if you would have seen it in person first? It really isn't the fault of the retailer and returning/exchanging things through the mail can be quite the pain. I just feel like many of the manufacturer's are getting away with one here in that they are not held to any standards. This is a small enough industry still that people really don't have any alternatives to go to another brand if they don't like the product. If this were occurring on some other than disc golf discs I can't see a company surviving today.

I believe for most if not all the production process is manual, no automation, so people are already handling the discs. it wouldn't take a lot to incorporate a quality step into the process. Even the issues with overstability/part lines; after the discs have completed the cooling process, I can't imagine it would be too difficult to check a disc using a fixture or some type of go-no-go gauge before it's tossed into a box to ship. Would it add to the cost of a disc, yes most likely, but personally I would be ok paying $1 or $2 more a disc if that meant I was getting a better product that looks/flies like the disc I'm expecting to receive.

 

[Rastnav]

Not that it's a direct answer to your question, but OTBDiscs.com seems to recognize the market demand you are pointing out. Pictures and descriptions of every disc, reweighing of each one. I also imagine that they are screening out discs that represent major quality issues and either sending them back to manufacturers or selling them at some sort of lesser cost (as the OTB stands for "Only The Best".) I think there are other similar retailers as well, but OTBs whole marketing effort is out towards this specific issue.

 

[crabapillar]

Yeah I know otb is very good about giving thorough descriptions of everything they have, it's great. I would be curious if they actually do weed out anything that is sub standard and send them back. I feel like to get the manufacturer's to actually acknowledge the issues it would take push back from the retailer's as it shouldn't fall on the retailer to perform the quality checks on discs before selling them. Even the weighing of discs now, the retailer's wouldn't have to do this is the manufacturer's did it correctly/accurately.

The Hornet I bought was from infinitediscs and I know they weigh and take pictures of everything; I would be curious if they set aside anything they come across that looks/feels below average.

 

[swhite]

As far as I know, Infinite Discs does not weigh the discs that they put up for sale. They list the weight that the manufacturer has given.

Marshall St Disc Golf weighs their discs, and will list any discs originally meant for full retale price but with imperfections as goobered. At the moment, they have 16 discs that are goobered, with the reasons why written in each disc description.

Marshall St carries lots of x-outs also. X-outs come to Marshall St at a discounted cost, and are sold at a discount. Goobered means that Marshall St was charged the full wholesale cost for a disc meant for retail sale.

 

[BillFleming]

I think the issue is the shortage and that companies are just getting discs out to the market. Discs that normally wouldn't make it out of the shop are now being shipped because they will sell.

 

[ray1970]

Nature of the beast. Injection molding of anything plastic is going to have unavoidable inconsistencies no matter how hard you try.

I fully admit I order the vast majority of my discs online but hand picking them in person is the only real way to know for sure exactly what you're getting.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

I fully admit I order the vast majority of my discs online but hand picking them in person is the only real way to know for sure exactly what you're getting.

I think this assumes players are really familiar with how different runs of certain molds differ, and how to "read" different tells within a mold (other than PLH, which is pretty obvious and easy to compare).

Other than comparing PLH of several discs of same mold, plastic, and similar weight, I think it's hard to get a read on which of them at your local retailer will fly differently than the others.

Maybe I'm just not up on what's what across various runs within the molds I throw. I think a relatively small percentage of players really know that stuff, although I think that % increases as you go up the ladder from Rec to Int, to Adv, and Pro/Open.

But most players aren't even PDGA registered.
I can't blame manufacturers for not adopting more stringent quality guidelines that won't necessarily translate into higher profits, and may even reduce profit if higher prices mean entry level players buy fewer discs.

 

[robdeforge]

Nature of the beast. Injection molding of anything plastic is going to have unavoidable inconsistencies no matter how hard you try.

I fully admit I order the vast majority of my discs online but hand picking them in person is the only real way to know for sure exactly what you're getting.

whenever possible I like to try to buy multiple from the same run. there's not necessarily a guarantee that they'll fly exactly the same, but far more likely that 4 of a disc from a single run will have similar flight patterns than 4 from who knows what runs. downside for this is it's not always possible to do for various reasons

 

[Countchunkula]

Nature of the beast. Injection molding of anything plastic is going to have unavoidable inconsistencies no matter how hard you try.

I fully admit I order the vast majority of my discs online but hand picking them in person is the only real way to know for sure exactly what you're getting.

You can absolutely mold plastic to within very tight tolerances. Disc manufacturers have never had the incentive to take on the higher cost required to mold discs with less variation though.

As much as I'd love consistent discs, I'm just not sure that there is enough demand to force change. Probably only a small % of players are aware that it's even an issue.

 

[txmxer]

You can absolutely mold plastic to within very tight tolerances. Disc manufacturers have never had the incentive to take on the higher cost required to mold discs with less variation though.

As much as I'd love consistent discs, I'm just not sure that there is enough demand to force change. Probably only a small % of players are aware that it's even an issue.

I don't doubt what you say, but that certainly comes at a cost. Would you be able to estimate the percentage cost delta to achieve a noticeable improvement in product?

When I was just out of high (~86), I worked as an injection molding machine operator making plastic parts for school furniture. Nothing magical about what I did and I'm not claiming expertise. It was manual labor. The machines were the size of a bus. It was very hot. We sprayed no stick type spray on the mold every so often if the parts started to stick. Colorizers could impact how clean the part came out. As operators, we removed the part and trimmed off flashing, stacked the part for delivery to the fab line. Depending on the part, we would make about one part per minute on average. They ran that area 7 days per week, 24 hrs per day because machine shutdown and startup cost a lot of time and money relatively speaking.

Quality/consistency would have to start with the plastic blend.

Temperature control on the machines should be pretty good.

The machining of a mold would probably have to be more precise.

Likely have to reduce runs on a given mold before repair and replacement.

If the above are correct, you'd need a way to evaluate the plastic better than today.

Probably wouldn't need new machines, but would need new molds.

And finally more QC on the discs.

I'm guessing the price doubles.

 

[BillFleming]

As much as I'd love consistent discs, I'm just not sure that there is enough demand to force change. Probably only a small % of players are aware that it's even an issue.

I agree that there are few players that really can tell/care about the difference.

I don't recall which pro I heard say it (might have been Paul Ulibarri)....but the pro said that when they buy a disc, they buy several of the same production run so they know all of them should fly the same. The pros that are sponsored (at least the big ones) have the ability to go to the manufacture's warehouse and pick out what they want...or get a delivery of multiple discs from the same run. Some, if not all, even get to stamp their own discs (Eagle was shown doing that).

 

[crabapillar]

It's interesting that so many people make excuses for the poor quality saying most player's don't care or that it isn't easy to injection mold quality parts. I think this is a big reason we still have so many issues with inconsistency, people are just willing to ignore it and for whatever reason have much lower expectations when it comes to disc golf.

We all buy many things in our daily life that are made through the injection molding process, most cost far less than a golf disc yet they don't suffer from the same quality issues. Just think about all the different "runs" of discs that are sought after, why are they sought after? Most likely because they were made properly and perform as they're expected to. If anything it should be the other way around in that there is a run to avoid because there was an issue during it but otherwise the vast majority of the discs produced are of good quality.

Personally I find it disappointing when I spend $50 on what are supposed to be 3 new discs and all 3 show up with some type of flaw in them. I shouldn't hope to receive a good disc, we should be receiving good discs and on rare occasions we may get a bad one but today it seems to be the other way around in that we hope to get a good disc and more often than not receive one with some type of issue.

More interesting is that the smaller companies that offer less molds seems to produce much better products; trilogy and mvp/axiom also seem to be much more consistent in terms of quality. So I don't think it's that injection molding is just difficult for everyone; it's a manufacturer's process or lack of one that results in good or poor quality discs. Or maybe they all have issues but some actually care about their product and remove the any suspect discs prior to making them available for sale.

 

[autocrosscrx]

We all buy many things in our daily life that are made through the injection molding process, most cost far less than a golf disc yet they don't suffer from the same quality issues.

Disagree.

We are just less passionate about plastic clothes hangers and whatnot.

 

[BillFleming]

It's interesting that so many people make excuses for the poor quality saying most player's don't care or that it isn't easy to injection mold quality parts. I think this is a big reason we still have so many issues with inconsistency, people are just willing to ignore it and for whatever reason have much lower expectations when it comes to disc golf.

We all buy many things in our daily life that are made through the injection molding process, most cost far less than a golf disc yet they don't suffer from the same quality issues. Just think about all the different "runs" of discs that are sought after, why are they sought after? Most likely because they were made properly and perform as they're expected to. If anything it should be the other way around in that there is a run to avoid because there was an issue during it but otherwise the vast majority of the discs produced are of good quality.

Personally I find it disappointing when I spend $50 on what are supposed to be 3 new discs and all 3 show up with some type of flaw in them. I shouldn't hope to receive a good disc, we should be receiving good discs and on rare occasions we may get a bad one but today it seems to be the other way around in that we hope to get a good disc and more often than not receive one with some type of issue.

More interesting is that the smaller companies that offer less molds seems to produce much better products; trilogy and mvp/axiom also seem to be much more consistent in terms of quality. So I don't think it's that injection molding is just difficult for everyone; it's a manufacturer's process or lack of one that results in good or poor quality discs. Or maybe they all have issues but some actually care about their product and remove the any suspect discs prior to making them available for sale.

Just out of curiosity, when you get discs that have imperfections/flaws, do you notify the maker of the issue?

I think disc golf is at a point where there are three types of disc buyers.
1. The player who is really "picky" about their discs, so they buy multiples of a single run.
2. The player who doesn't care. They buy a disc to try and if they like it, they might by another when they lose the first. They really don't care if the flight is the same.
3. The player who is a bit of both. They aren't going to buy multiple discs from the same run, but they do want to be able to buy a second disc at some time and have it fly like their original one did.

I believe type 1, doesn't care too much about reporting differences because they have enough discs from a run to ensure they are all pretty much the same.
Type 2...well, they just don't care. It's not important.
Type 3....this is the group that really has the issues with discs...they aren't buying multiples of one run - maybe they can't afford it - but still know enough that they want their discs to be the same regardless of when they buy them.

One issue with making discs...is how are the molds really made? What is the tolerance for differences? I've heard that some companies (Kastaplast, Latitude64., others) use computer/robots for the process so that every step is exactly the same from one disc to another and they replace molds when the tolerance is off. Does Innova do that? I don't know....but maybe not.

BTW-I'm the type 2 player. I don't care enough, mainly because I can't tell the difference between one run and another. Small imperfections? They don't bother me as they don't affect the disc enough for me to tell the difference.

Brings me back to the beginning - have you notified the manufacturer when you notice issues? I don't think many players do and that's why the issue continues. Why fix something if players don't seem to care and they are still buying the discs?

 

[BillFleming]

Disagree.

We are just less passionate about plastic clothes hangers and whatnot.

True! I've bought plastic hangers with excess plastic along the join....while I wouldn't want it on a disc, I don't care if it exists on a hanger.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

It's as simple as, "Is it cost effective to improve disc manufacturing/product consistency?"

Apparently, disc manufacturers have decided the answer is "Nope." Expecting companies to do things that reduce profits is ...

Well, good luck with that.

 

[Countchunkula]

I don't doubt what you say, but that certainly comes at a cost. Would you be able to estimate the percentage cost delta to achieve a noticeable improvement in product?

When I was just out of high (~86), I worked as an injection molding machine operator making plastic parts for school furniture. Nothing magical about what I did and I'm not claiming expertise. It was manual labor. The machines were the size of a bus. It was very hot. We sprayed no stick type spray on the mold every so often if the parts started to stick. Colorizers could impact how clean the part came out. As operators, we removed the part and trimmed off flashing, stacked the part for delivery to the fab line. Depending on the part, we would make about one part per minute on average. They ran that area 7 days per week, 24 hrs per day because machine shutdown and startup cost a lot of time and money relatively speaking.

Quality/consistency would have to start with the plastic blend.

Temperature control on the machines should be pretty good.

The machining of a mold would probably have to be more precise.

Likely have to reduce runs on a given mold before repair and replacement.

If the above are correct, you'd need a way to evaluate the plastic better than today.

Probably wouldn't need new machines, but would need new molds.

And finally more QC on the discs.

I'm guessing the price doubles.

I don't have the visibility to tell how much of a cost adder it would be. Your estimate of double is probably fair though.

My background with plastics: The company I work for used to produce plastic gears and housings. I was the cost accountant at the time we moved plastic production to one of our sister companies and helped management understand the impact of that move. Spent quite a bit of time discussing with the mold room supervisor and timing/observing various operations.

With no temperature control, we were able to hold tolerances of .001" on a few critical dimensions. We did use inline dryers to remove any moisture from the pellet supply. As far as volume, we were running millions of pieces per year of select parts on old tools.

 

[pjhayes7]

It's as simple as, "Is it cost effective to improve disc manufacturing/product consistency?"

Apparently, disc manufacturers have decided the answer is "Nope." Expecting companies to do things that reduce profits is ...

Well, good luck with that.

Not just that, I don't want $20 to be the base price of a disc. These people paying that kind a price for a putting putter are out of their damn minds. I am not saying there could not be some slight more attention to detail that would overall not cost that much in the long run. But all together, the cost to the manufacturer and ultimately the buyer to have noticeably more consistency would be too much.

 

[jakebake91]

It's as simple as, "Is it cost effective to improve disc manufacturing/product consistency?"

Apparently, disc manufacturers have decided the answer is "Nope." Expecting companies to do things that cut into profits is ...

Well, good luck with that.

This is accurate.

All they would really have to do is implement a more stringent qc program. But, that adds a bit to production, more scrapped discs and therefore raises costs. Discs are selling fine as is. Manufacturers aren't gonna make life more difficult on themselves for no reason.

Also:
To the people that think of plastic injection molding as some inexact and crude process, I'm here to tell you that you are wrong. I have a background in actually building plastic injection molds, as well as doing QC in an injection plant. It's perfectly possible to hold tolerances on molded parts that most of you wouldn't even be able to comprehend. It's also even more possible to reject/recycle parts that don't meet certain criteria. It's absolutely possible, even with current processes, for manufacturers to pump out more consistent discs. It just takes some more effort.

Some manufacturers do a much better job than others. Some manufacturers give me the impression that they honestly just don't care at all.

 

[txmxer]

I don't have the visibility to tell how much of a cost adder it would be. Your estimate of double is probably fair though.

My background with plastics: The company I work for used to produce plastic gears and housings. I was the cost accountant at the time we moved plastic production to one of our sister companies and helped management understand the impact of that move. Spent quite a bit of time discussing with the mold room supervisor and timing/observing various operations.

With no temperature control, we were able to hold tolerances of .001" on a few critical dimensions. We did use inline dryers to remove any moisture from the pellet supply. As far as volume, we were running millions of pieces per year of select parts on old tools.

One of the challenge for disc makers is they aren't running millions of parts and they are varying the plastic with each run.

To improve quality on limited runs is a much bigger challenge than improving quality on a part you are going to make a million times.

I guess in Bill's post, I'm a don't care enough or I'm not picky enough. I haven't run into any noticeable flaws with the discs I've purchased. I throw them and if I like them, I bag them.