How come?

First some words about me and then the question.

My first employment was in the automotive machine shop that my father managed. Later on, I ran the place.

A boyhood interest in radio brought me a ham radio license and when I was 25 I went to work for Hughes Aircraft (later GM-Hughes) as an electronics technician. In the next 30 years at Hughes I was at various times: assembly line supervisor, senior research assistant, member of the technical (engineer), engineering group head, retired, contract consultant. When Raytheon bought Hughes, my contact was terminated and I was asked to hire on with Raytheon, which I did for a couple of years before I could no longer stand working for them. This brings me to today when I have time to pursue a long-time interest in woodworking. A couple of "woodshop" classes and the construction of about half of my house is pretty much my experience so far.

I have always been a "hands on" guy and a voracious reader; in fact, I'm primarily self-taught in my fields of interest, pretty much learning by making mistakes [g]. Some course work in photography proved to me that I was a damn good darkroom technician, but an artist I am not. I'm sure the same applies to woodworking. So, I take great delight in reading this group as well as FWW, et cetera.

By now, you're saying this belongs in the "How did you get into woodworking thread" so let me veer to the question:

Why do woodworkers put up with such crappy tooling and machinery?

My loving wife is encourging me to buy whatever I want for my shop so I am in the market (I think) for some new tools. (This is why I will continue to wear my wedding ring in the shop, but I digress) I have been reading this group and all of the other references I can find for reviews and opinions and frankly I appalled at what I'm finding.

In my former jobs, I have literally specified, approved, purchased and used several million dollars worth of machinery, electronics test equipment and components. *Never* would I, or my employers, put up with buying stuff that was in the sorry state that seems to be the norm for woodworking equipment. Neither would our customers put up with us supplying products of similar quality.

As a radio amateur I put together a number of Heathkit radios. These were of course, "kits"; it even said so in the company name. I suggest in the interest in truth-in-labeling that woodworking equipment suppliers should be required to add "kit" to their names. For example, the "Stanley Plane Kit" company.

The instructions would say, "Unpack your plane kit and disassemble the pieces. Finish the manufacturing process by, flattening the sole, filing the throat, adjusting the frog, grinding and honing the chipbreaker, flattening the back of the iron and refining the edge. Reassemble the pieces and adjust for a proper cut."

The instructions for Marples chisel kits would include instructs on retempering, regrinding and honing the blade (Other chisel kit manufactures could leave out the retempering part.)

If I believe the reviews, even a $2000 Powermatic PM66 table saw is a kit. The instructions would say something like, "Throw away the crappy table extension that was broken in shipment and build a new one out of hard Maple banded in Rosewood." Additional instructs would tell how to make shims to get the iron extension wings flush with the tabletop and file the miter gauge so it doesn't scratch the table. And, "Oh, by the way, we sold you a "saw" but if you want to actually cut something, you'll have to buy a "saw blade" separately and that motor cover you see in all of the pictures is extra too."

The Grizzly table saw kit would include instructions for contacting the trucking company that dropped it off the truck, to make a claim.

The General International table saw kit would include instructions for completing the manufacturing process by drilling the holes required to attach the "Made In Canada" fence to the "Made in the Far East" saw.

There have been millions of words written about arbor run out, table flatness, aligning the blade to the miter gauge slots, getting the miter gauge tight in the slots, getting the fence parallel to the blade, poorly designed blade guards, lousy dust collection, making new table inserts and on and on. All of this over a rather simple piece of machinery.

I very recently assembled a Jet 1100 dust collector kit. In this case, I knew it was a kit that required assembly, but why didn't they include the tap that I needed to chase the threads to get the paint out of them so the screws would go in without galling? A half hour job turned into two hours spent chasing down a tap.

What's up with this?

Reply to
Wes Stewart
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Why do you buy hamburgers, and countless other items through advertising, that barely have a resemblance to the item you spend your money on?

Reply to
Swingman

Simple. Many of us demand low prices and that has become the main criteria for what we buy. Manufacturers can't give us precision machinery at low prices, so, we have to finish the machining/assembly process, ourselves. This, of course, is also the reason much of what we buy is manufactured somewhere else.

Reply to
Phil Anderson

snip--

ow that they are owned by rubbermaid, I guess we should be looking for their new rubber bladed line....

Reply to
Bridger

sorry about that...

snip--

Now that they are owned by rubbermaid, I guess we should be looking for their new rubber bladed line....

So if you buy a cnc mill you expect it to come with all of the tooling?

the bill of sale oughtta have the damage claim slip attached with the relevant parts pre- filled out....

(insert) instructions for reading the instructions....

woodworking is older than metalworking, so the technology is more primitive.

Bridger

Reply to
Bridger

Next time, try cutting two slots in one of the screws with a Dremel tool. The slots will allow the screw to act as a tap well enough to finish the job and get on with things.

The slots won't affect the screw's ability to do it's real job once you've chased the threads.

Barry

Reply to
B a r r y B u r k e J r .

I believe that the answer is really simple. The quality of woodworking tools directly reflects what the consumers are willing to pay. You make the case of a Stanley plane being poor out of the box. With planes there are alternatives. Lee Valley and Lie Neilsen planes work great out of the box...but cost more than Stanley planes. You also mentioned tablesaws, and gave some examples, but you didn't mention the high-end saws that are highly accurate. Some of these companies send a technician to setup the saw, check specifications, and to train the operator on the use/features. The cost is high, and I don't think that most woodworkers want to pay $20K for a sliding tablesaw.

If the woodworking tool companies were extremely profitable then you might have a valid complaint but for the most part they are not getting rich. It would be great to think that they were making a $800 profit on a $1600 saw and that some white knight could start a company that could live with a $100 profit on a saw and put all of the excess profit back into the tool. It isn't going to happen.

From your description it sounds like you have some disposable income, and are interested in precision, so you might want to look at some of the high-end European companies. There are plenty of quality alternatives and it would be interesting to see the list of equipment that you purchase.

Good luck with your shop - Bob McBreen

Reply to
RWM

| |>> I very recently assembled a Jet 1100 dust collector kit. In this |>> case, I knew it was a kit that required assembly, but why didn't they |>> include the tap that I needed to chase the threads to get the paint |>> out of them so the screws would go in without galling? A half hour |>> job turned into two hours spent chasing down a tap. | | |Next time, try cutting two slots in one of the screws with a Dremel |tool. The slots will allow the screw to act as a tap well enough to |finish the job and get on with things.

Sure, I could have done that.

Also, a lot of my remarks were slightly rhetorical. In the same vein, if I need Dremel tool to do the job, why don't they supply one? Just kidding [G].

Wes

Reply to
Wes Stewart

and how would that differ from the set I have now?

Reply to
Bob N

You worked at Rayetheon too long. The machinery you specified, approve, and purchased came from much higher budgets than the tools we use. We can't go back the the Pentagon and get more money because we found a different way of doing something. If we worked our budgets like the typical aerospace contractor, our tools would be much better and we'd be subsidized. The manufacturers make what we can afford to buy, not what really can be made.

Safety is a concern in the shop, but we don't have the same life ensuring redundancy in the controls like a sspace casule, nor do we need them. Table saw castings don't get magnafluxed before assembly. Sure, some things could be better, that is why we complain to the manufacturers at times, but there is a practical limi to the tolerances we can afford. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net

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Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski
[snip] | |From your description it sounds like you have some disposable income,

Oh, if it were only so. Disposable never [g] discretionary maybe, but my last name is Stewart so I try not to throw money away.

Furthermore, this all may be a passing fancy. I have some specific projects (primarily bathroom and kitchen cabinetry and a few small furniture projects) in mind where to get what I want, my only alternative seems to be build them myself or hire someone to do it.

When I built onto my house the crappist work was performed by "craftsmen" and "journeymen" who I hired and the acceptable work was done by yours truly so I'm reluctant to hire it done. Plus, as I said I'm a hands-on guy and take pleasure in doing this stuff.

So, I can rationalize the cost of equipment, up to a point, as a part of the cost of the end product.

|Good luck with your shop - Bob McBreen

Thanks, Bob, I appreciate your input.

Wes |

Reply to
Wes Stewart

Did you happen to know Bob Zimmerman, WB9BPX? He worked for Hughes for quite a while. I knew him for several years when I was N9AKE. I'm now K4QG. Licensed since '63; did my fair share of Heathkits...

LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

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Reply to
LRod

I saw a poster the summer of 1976 that sums up my philosophy. The poster photo was a beautiful multi-story, ivy-covered mansion with a chauffer driven streatch limo in the circular drive. The lawn, bushes and flowers were obviously under the care of one or more full time individuals. It dripped with wealth and stability. The poster's caption:

"I Have Simple Tastes. I Want The Best."

The woodworking shop in my dreams has the equivalent of Theodore Horstmann for Nero Wolfe's orchid greenhouse. Theodore sets up all the equipment, and I make all the table saw cuts. ;-)

The reality is I don't have a full-time chef (Fritz), assistant (Archie Goodwin) and orchid nurse (T. Horstmann) working for me. So my one car garage shop has been built by me, one tool at a time, with extremely careful calculations of cost/effectiveness. I have had to deal with the setup problems of equipment.

If I hit the lottery () several people in the greater Washington DC area will receive an email to the effect, "How much per hour would you charge me to set up a woodworking shop?" I just want to make stuff; I don't like fussing with the setups.

-- Mark

Reply to
Mark Jerde

I hear ya...

Grew up on the farm. Owned a retail TV business in college. Got my ham license when I was a freshman -- chief engineer at a 1 KW AM radio station before I got married, etc., then 30 years at Hewlett-Packard before I got fed up with small-fry building their personal empires inside the company instead of doing their job.

We built our own home (1/5 acre of floor space) while the critics stood in line taking turns taking shots. Then last year went out on the internet to buy a dust collector not unlike yours. That's when I got my eyes opened about the HAZARDS associated with the dust collectors most people use in complete ignorance of those risks.

I don't wear my wedding ring -- ever, and my wife approves. She'd prefer a husband with 10 fingers instead of nine. The ring doesn't mean a thing for men who carouse anyway and women who prey on them.

Get a dust collector that works. Educate yourself at

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, and if you're interested in getting a system that's done right, the cyclone kit and matching welded-all-steel blower housing are at
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. Add a motor, controller for the motor, impeller, filters, and some ducting, and you have a first-rate dust collection system that WORKS, and without spending a big pile of cash.

As for other tools, table saws don't come with dado blades, importers don't ship assembled tools because they don't fit nicely in freight containers and they don't want to do it, even if the cost of the tool is 20% of the selling price... I bought a Powermatic drill press, and it turned out to be a piece of junk. The chuck wobbled and when you pulled it off of the tapered quill shaft, it was visibly obvious that the reamer had been run into it on the slant. And Powermatic had such nice machines when I used them at HP.

My wife says I'm spoiled. I expect quality from everybody. But if I make cyclone kits and blower housings, I demand quality from myself, so why can't I demand it of others? Some outfits make a nice living by keeping customers and consumers as poorly informed and as ignorant as possible. It's dangerous to have informed customers. They can see through the fakery.

CE

Wes Stewart wrote:

Reply to
Clarke Echols

I justify the cost of my (mainly decent) tools by thinking of how much money I have saved by not paying somebody else to do the work for me. ie. Say I've built myself a nice cabinet I think to myself "How much would that have cost me to buy? 500 quid? I spent 100 on timber so I can get a Lie Nielsen plane and I've still made money!"

If you're not sure whether woodworking will be anything more than a passing fancy then I'd suggest just buying good hand tools. It means more time and labour using hand tools but if you decide you don't want to take it up `seriously' you haven't sunk too much money into your tools and the tools you've bought will always come in handy or you can always sell them.

If you take it up a bit more seriously then I'd recommend buying a couple of *good* power tools. They are available but always consider that you're not working to the same tolerances with timber that you would be in an engineering shop so the tools are inevitably a bit more primitive than what you are probably used to in your professional capacity. But there are good European machine tools and the Japs make pretty good power saws, drills etc.

I agree with your general point that a hell of a lot of tools are cr*p and a complete waste of money but then most of them are made for the hobbyist market and they compete on price not quality - a hobbyist probably wouldn't recognise a quality tool if it hit them over the head.

Reply to
Frank Shute

|On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 11:49:45 -0700, Wes Stewart |wrote: | |>A boyhood interest in radio brought me a ham radio license and when I |>was 25 I went to work for Hughes Aircraft (later GM-Hughes) as an |>electronics technician. | |Did you happen to know Bob Zimmerman, WB9BPX? He worked for Hughes for |quite a while. I knew him for several years when I was N9AKE. I'm now |K4QG. Licensed since '63; did my fair share of Heathkits...

That name is familiar although I can't put a face to it, and I definately don't recall him by amateur call sign.

I was K7CVT in 1958 and had a Heath DX100 :-).

Nice to meet you,

Regards,

Wes

Reply to
Wes Stewart

|Sun, Jan 25, 2004, 11:49am (EST-2) n7ws@_arrl.net (Wes Stewart) |pontificates: |First some words |Why do woodworkers put up with such crappy tooling and machinery? | | I beg your pardon? My stuff may not be expensive, but it does just |what I want it to. As does the items I make, tool stands, jigs, etc. |Inexpensive it may be, if it does what it's supposed to then crappy it |is not. I don't see anyone offering to buy me any fancy, new, equipment |- or are you offering?

No. | |My loving wife is encourging me to buy whatever I want | | Oh, goody for you.

I believe so. Wives number 1 and 2 weren't so nice. | |I have been reading this group and all of the other references I can |find for reviews and opinions and frankly I appalled at what I'm |finding. | | You have apparently led a very sheltered life, and don't get out |much.

See comments about wives 1, 2 and 3.

| |In my former jobs, I have literally specified, approved, purchased and |used several million dollars worth of machinery, electronics test |equipment and components. | | And, you never bought for a bit of it with your own dime.

I didn't say that. But I did buy some of it with your dimes. Aren't you glad that I demanded better quality that you're willing to accept. Didn't look at it that way before did you? [G].

| |*Never* would I, or my employers, put up with buying stuff that was in |the sorry state that seems to be the norm for woodworking equipment. |Neither would our customers put up with us supplying products of similar |quality. | | The quality of the tool, is not necessarily indicitive of the end |result. You should have learned that by now.

Oh, I have. | | Apparently, then, none of the things made by any of the companies |you worked for were ever less than perfect.; nothing ever had to be |repaired, or returned. You must have been so happy.

Of course we had "returns" and we received crap from our suppliers too. In one instance, after visiting one of our suppliers, I recommended the recall of hundreds of Tomahawk missiles. For reasons beyond my control it didn't happen, but I believed I was looking out for our servicemen and you taxpayers.

OTOH, we built over three-quarters of a million TOW missiles at a unit cost of only $80,000. These were over 99% reliable, in fact this was a "fly-to-buy" program where the Army randomly selected a quantity of missiles from each month's production and fired them at Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama. (I helped instrument that firing range in the 70's) If they did not meet contract requirements, the Army didn't buy them. If we exceeded contract requirement, we got a bonus. At the height of production, we built over 1500 per month and missiles that have been in storage for 10 years, without *zero* maintenance, are routinely fired with nearly the same reliability.

Once again, since you helped pay for this, you should be happy too.

| |What's up with this? | | Well, since you seem to be so bright, you tell us.

I thought I was asking the question.

Warmest regards,

Wes

Reply to
Wes Stewart

|Wes Stewart wrote: |> First some words about me and then the question. |> In my former jobs, I have literally specified, approved, purchased and |> used several million dollars worth of machinery, electronics test |> equipment and components. >

|> What's up with this? | |You worked at Rayetheon (sic) too long.

I agree, I hated that company.

|The machinery you specified, approve, and |purchased came from much higher budgets than the tools we use. We can't go |back the the Pentagon and get more money because we found a different way of |doing something. If we worked our budgets like the typical aerospace |contractor, our tools would be much better and we'd be subsidized. The |manufacturers make what we can afford to buy, not what really can be made.

I believe that you miss my point. Let's use another example. If you bought the cheapest Hyundai or Kia automobile you would not begin to accept the defects that you would find in a table saw made in the same neck of the woods.

The car can be had for $12K and you can easily spend $2K+ for a Jet, General International or other Asian built TS. I submit that there are over six times the material, labor, transportation, advertising costs and markup, not to mention complexity in an automobile compared to a table saw. And, if what I read is any indication, table saws come with a 100% defect rate, few of which are corrected by the seller but are the responsibility of the buyer. If Kias were 100% defective and the dealer said tough shit buddy, you fix it, how long with they be selling cars?

|Safety is a concern in the shop, but we don't have the same life ensuring |redundancy in the controls like a sspace casule, nor do we need them. Table |saw castings don't get magnafluxed before assembly. Sure, some things |could be better, that is why we complain to the manufacturers at times, but |there is a practical limi to the tolerances we can afford.

Text based communicating where nuance, facial expression and body language are missing is fraught with the possibility of misinterpretation and besides being a "hands-on" guy, I'm a "tongue-in-cheek" guy. So nothing I've said or am about to say is personal or directed to anyone in particular.

I really do appreciate your comments. As a fairly long-time reader but only recent poster to this forum I hope that I'm not stepping on any toes because I get a great deal out of reading the group and I have a lot more questions.

But that said, in just the few comments received already, I think I've gotten the answer to my question, "Why do woodworkers put up with such crappy tooling and machinery?"

And the answer is.... Because they don't expect any better and the manufacturers know it.

Regards,

Wes

Reply to
Wes Stewart

| At the height of production, we built over 1500 per month and |missiles that have been in storage for 10 years, without *zero* |maintenance, are routinely fired with nearly the same reliability.

Whoops, issue a recall... That should have read "with" zero maintenance.

Reply to
Wes Stewart

I totally disagree. I think that the answer is because most woodworkers are only willing to pay for crappy products. With your logic, a company could come into the market and sell a $800 cabinet saw with zero defects, all necessary accessories, and still make a decent profit. The intellectual property threshold for entry into this market is low, the manufacturing capability is sufficient, and the distribution channel is open, so why isn't it happening? It isn't happening because the margin is not there.

Your argument also implies that there must be some type of collusion between the manufactures. If not ,one of the companies could have a huge increase in market share simply by reducing the margins and drop the price, or increase quality at the same retail price.

As I stated in an earlier post, there are lots of high quality machines for woodworkers to purchase but for the most part they choose not to. They are willing to trade high quality out of the box tools for lower priced tools that have some aggravations.

Bob McBreen

Reply to
RWM

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