Megadeath
Well-known member
Making little metal balls is easy. Making them perfectly spherical to within a tiny tolerance level, and making the equipment to check that tolerance level are the real challenge. In the case of ball point pens (And likely other applications, of course.) actually producing steel of sufficient quality was also a significant challenge. Quality control has long been a problem for China, and for Russia as well. China seems to be at least aware and working to fix their basics. Russia not so much. They still haven't learned that it doesn't matter if you've got a team of geniuses who can design a brilliant 5th gen fighter or super tank, if you don't have the support structure to actually make them.Dude, your link is paywalled.
Very counter-intuitive that something as simple as little metal spheres would be so hard to mass-produce. Economics of scale meaning it's more cost-effective to have a few big players do it is one thing... those big players being the only people who can do it at all is quite another.