Forum menu
Yeah, I love the drama. So what's the difference between "tolerance" and "specification"?
Lawyer caught out blagging it with engineering terms not properly understood...
The specification is what it's designed to, eg, 'The forks will withstand a force of x N with no more than y mm of deflection at the drop outs'
Tolerance is how tolerent the design is to variation. This variation can be manufacturing things, like the torque used to assemble it, or what range of sizes the parts are (the +/- bit in a dimension) but it could also be how it's used.
As has been mentioned above, without knowing more it is impossible to say whether the failure was due to design, tolerances, manufaucture or misuse.
Stuff breaks. Your assertation that it doesn't break in other sports etc has been proven wrong.
So, given that stuff breaks in all sports, hobbies and machines around the world, what is your point?