A couple weeks ago, I watched the NYW where he builds his mailbox, and puts it out in front of his house with 4 or 5 other mailboxes. Great, fine, etc. Immediately following NYW was Ask This Old House, where they "got a letter from a viewer who wanted a better way for the mailman and visitors to see his house numbers." So they pull up the street to this guy's mailbox - and sure enough, right there is the mailbox I had just watched Nahm build, same street/numbers/colors and all, just a tad worse for the wear. "A random viewer" - yeah, OK.
I've seen the ads and promos. The whole concept of Festool kinda flies in the face of the widely held belief (in this country) that you can't sell a product unless it is a cheap Chinese POS marketed at Wally World. Seems the Stanleys and B&Ds of the world are more interested in repeat small profits on mass volumes rather than reputation and more profit on smaller volumes. Ah, gotta love those publicly traded US corporations and their idiot boards when they ride another brand name down the tubes.
I've looked at the Festool product line in person, but have used none of them. They appear to be very well constructed. Heavy gears and housings. The Domino stands out as the most uniquely valuable of the lot. The saw is kinda gimmicky for my needs, but the homeowner who doesn't need a table saw or the lightweight professional in the field would likely find it more valuable.
Also, Powermatic/WHM Tools is now sponsoring a new series on PBS called the Woodsmith Shop. The first episode air in my area was today. It was uneven and the hosts stilted. The show was about tuning bandsaws, yet I found it rather ironic that they chose a blade with a bad weld to use while filming the show. It about drove me up the wall whenever they powered it up. Either they're just getting their sea legs, or it needs a new producer that isn't also a CEO.
So to wrap that back around to Norm, they have a winner in him, and B&D had better watch it lest WMH Tool Group outbids them as a sponsor. It could prove to be a crippling blow to Delta.
Of all the shows I've seen, on PBS or HGTV, Norm et al. and David Marks are the cream. The massive proliferation of half-hour refurb and landscaping shows, for the most part, are an abomination. Mass marketed fluff that is poorly conceived, demonstrates dangerous work methods and poor quality workmanship. But to each his own...
I've only seen a few episodes of Router Workshop & American Woodshop. Our PBS affiliate doesn't seem interested in carrying them long term. Norm has been the only long term player. The RW is a tool in search of a problem sometimes best solved by application of another tool, and AW is a bit down home and rustic. Of the two, I find AW preferable.
But that Scott fellow on HGTV is a dweeb. I find it amazing that he has survived this long, counter to Darwin's Law.
But Leon, I suspect my photochopped image has assaulted a sacred cow. No worries, all in fun. You've gotta have a pretty thick skin to survive notoriety these days. People can be so cruel and petty. ;-)
Sad part is, who will replace him when he hangs up his tool belt. Even more sobering, will we still be around when he does.
Well hell, that's no problem, Leon. As long as some semblance of quality remains. I have noticed that the castings for the Jet/Powermatic bandsaws and such are exactly the same. Different color and accessories. And better QC than Delta has managed thus far.
to surf the web looking for obscure critiques which may be real or imagined is rather impudent. Many here work and access the net in 30 second spurts; not everyone is a retiree who has all day to surf for referenced trivia. Nor is it a classroom where research is a constituent element of the graded curriculum.
That aside, I about choked when I saw the site. On that point, you are correct. The lowest common denominator apparently reigns supreme.
"George" wrote in news:1Twgj.41388$ snipped-for-privacy@newsreading01.news.tds.net:
Ok, so the website's set up for 600x800, fixed width. There's lots of "neat web design" junk on it. Other than that, what do you want us to see?
You'll have to tell us what you're referring to, I cannot read your mind. Do you think Performax tools are going down in quality? Are you saying they're doing better?
Yep, there is always the exception. I am sitting next to a book case with just that detail and I designed the glass hold strips to be on the inside of the door so I wouldn't see the nails. But you won't see any nails in any of the applied molding.
You could have read the post. You and Greg could both benefit from spending half as much time learning as responding. Performax, as indicated in the original post, is a respected brand name purchased by a conglomerate who has rebadged its products and taken the good name into the cheap end of the pool.
It's certainly nothing new, buying out the competition to get his patents, but it is sort of sad to see the name which stood for quality dragged rather than dropped.
It appears that WMH is trying to create several distinct brands.
At first glance, I can see them positioning Powermatic as the top end, Jet as a serious hobby to small-shop pro, and Performax to a the portable, contractor market, maybe with some entry level stuff.
Notice that the Performax drum sanders are renamed to Jet, and do not remain with the portable tools.
To me, this seems like a rather logical brand rearrangement, rather than evidence of "racing to the bottom".
It all makes a lot more sense to me than General adding "International" to the name plate or Delta adding "Shopmaster" to the decal. More often than not people totally missed the added word and considered them the real deal, rather than a lower-end alternative to the flagship brand.
I don't see it that way, at least now with General. Most anybody that's doing research online has some knowledge about what they want and are just checking out the differences in function, details and price. Considering what most big iron costs, people are pretty particular about what they buy and don't usually pull the trigger at the first product they see. It's pretty obvious when you see the price discrepancy difference between General and General International that there's a distinct difference between the two. That's plenty of information for someone to dig deeper for additional details.
Look, you insolent fart, I ordinarily overlook rude transgressions, but since you again call me out by name, I have to comment that I spend 80% of my time "learning". Including 7 programming languages, several whose OS API's change on a semi-monthly basis, as well as rebuilding a house, civil tort law, maintaining pets, electronic and digital design, keeping up with the demise of this country's economy, and the blow by blows on the idiots elected to office. I also manage to fit in some woodworking now and then. Not to mention keeping up with the "public service" clowns who have tried to do me in for the last 20 years as they try to conceal bribery, subversion of the legal system, arson, insurance fraud, drug dealers, threats and collusion to protect one dead, illiterate serial arsonist son of an overpaid ex-school board attorney, his ex-chief superior court judge law partner, a couple of bribe taking state judges, a collusive bar association, a crony senator, an ex-school board superintendent that has been run out of 3 different school systems around the country for various improprieties, his child molesting, asshat son, a shifty navy recruiter, Newt, a crony Florida NeoCon state rep, that crap from Texas, legions of sycophants, and a drunken, lying, knife wielding psycho charged with felony assault and her meddling mother - all of whom cost me many tens of thousands of dollars and decades of life. All arrogant, redneck SOB's as well. Not being a pantywaist, I won't put up with it from them, nor from some anonymous clown on Usenet.
Alas, scraping all this shit off my shoes leaves little time to substantiate your one line assertion of WMH Tools effect on yet another corporate reputation. No one in this area sells Performax, I've never been to their web site, and considering the fact that I've changed technical careers 3 times in the past 20 years, have watched, up close and personal, at least 6 electronics companies fail and just about everything else vacate the country in lieu of cheap labor in a communist slave labor nation, I don't think it is unreasonable to request a minor definition of exactly what you're complaining about with this line:
It is called "conversation." You could have included the statement, "just look at their web site for details" and all would have been good. but you resort to repeated personal affronts. Even them learnin book thangs have references and footnotes to substantiate their vague assertions for the benefit of those busy academics who must plod through them. As for me, I've already wasted 10 minutes typing this pointless screed, and I'm done.
But while we're resorting to ad hominem attacks, you could benefit from learnin' some ordinary manners, upping your Thorazine script, or getting laid.
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