When did the quality of some well known tool companies start their downfall? Has it been creeping up on us? Is there a time period where it definately happened? My father has a B&D saw that is about 40 years old that is still going strong. Heavy but working quite well. My saw bought from what I thought was a really reliable company has gone through 3 switches in 11 years (light to moderate use). There have been a lot of advances in tools, but also quality declines in some brands that were once known as a good tool, can’t go wrong with them. Can you pinpoint a time in which you think this has occurred? What companies do you feel has given up the most in terms of loss of quality? Not just looking for American companies, some other good overseas companies have allowed their quality to lower as well.
Do you think the companies know / care that average Joe woodworker feels their products are junk?
Replies
I myself have often pondered that question. You hear all the time from tool collectors "oh man look at this old Stanley!", but everytime I see one of the tools they make today it just isn't quality to me. I can not be sure of a specific date or time in history, but I am guessing that as cheap labor over seas became more known and accepted, large companies gradually started setting up for faster production and less quality control. I could be totally wrong, and I am open to that possibility, but that is my two cents at any rate.
If I had to guess a time period i would go with the mid seventies.
Edited 2/11/2008 10:15 pm ET by Relayer
Materials, costs, how we take care of our tools, and expectations
There is of course a pressure to lower the weight of the tool, and to lower the cost. That's led to more plastic, and of course a push to lower manufacturing costs. Part of those costs are quality control.
Tools are relatively cheap items, I doubt my saw cost more than $50. Same with drills. This is the walmart mentality, we expect the item to break. So we don't take very good care of it, then when it breaks we say: See it's low quality...
I do have to agree with you. There really does seem to be a steady march towards the garbage bin for many brands. It seems as the companies merge, quality suffers.
Tool quality started to decline when the accountants took over from the engineers and craftsmen.
The accountants play a role, but I don't think they're the cause per se. Rather, it's the Wall Street mentality, which has induced a significant shift in the goals and priorities of all businesses. It used to be that you started a manufacturing business in order to produce a product that people wanted to buy, and to make some money doing it. Nowadays, it's all about maximizing profits. It doesn't matter how you do it; all that counts is that you make money faster than the other guy.
People who have created thriving business, with contented and well cared for employees, offering quality goods and services, are severely criticized by Wall Street because they're not making as much money as they could be making, or growing as fast as they could be growing, were they willing to cut some corners here and there.
-Steve
Steve: Just my opinion, but I think the "analysts" have caused what your talking about. A co. could be making a profit of say 30% net, but the analysts "expetations "were 40%, so the stock tanks, the co. says we better cut something to get more than "expectations" so what suffers?
James
The analysts don't do their work in a vacuum. Their expectations in large part reflect what the company has told them was going on, often not about the final number per se but about the various parts of the business. This is tempered by what other firms in the indurstry and customers are saying, and what is happening in the economy. When a company misses estimates it means that they didn't have a good idea about their own performance 2 months ahead, at worst meaning they are out of control in an accounting sense. Even if not that severe it casts doubt on the ability of managment. Soemtimes it means managment has been caught in a lie; it's not just about a quarter's earnings.
Steve:
Right on. In an earlier life (pre-1991) I was for 10 years a buy-side analyst and portfolio manager. Sounds like you might have been, too. Analysts are not in a vacuum, and have highly limied and imperfect information. Absent odd phenomina such as the tech bubble whan everybody wanted an analyst's blessing to cash in with an IPO, analysts have little impact on anybody's product decisions. Further, good analysts are looking for sustainable earnings - the ability of a company to keep its markets happy and keep on earning money. How the company does that is its business.
Joe
I spent about 20 years on the sell side, most of it dealing with special situations in the fixed income universe. That did make me focus quarter by quarter--a miss by more than a little bit often meant Ch. 11 sooner rather than later.
Steve,
I believe your analysis is correct, as far as it goes. The Wall St creatures are only following the natural logic of capitalism, which seeks always to produce at least cost for most profit.
In the 1920s the idea of the constantly renewing market was spawned, along with it's associate - advertising oriented at making you want new/fashionable rather than time-tested/durable. This works great for frocks and motor cars.
Inevitably all manufacturers, especially when they become governed by Wall St (shareholders & bean countrs) require the benefits of that marketing model. So, all goods, even those that intrinsically need to be time-tested/durable, end up being made and marketed on image rather than substance. There is also the implicit assumption that durability doesn't matter as we will all be persuaded to buy a "new, improved model" next month/year, so feeding the capitalist engine.
Of course, this model does not work for tools. It doesn't work for cars, either (do remember the dangerous rust buckets of 1950 - 1990)? Strangely the competition in the car market is now so high that "well-made/durable" has again entered the advertising man's panoply of desirable selling qualities (the far eastern competition has seen to it).
Maybe we will see the same cycle with tools? There are signs - Ryobi tools are cheap to buy but still remarkably well-made and functional compared to the junkier stuff, which ony costs a few dollars less...... How long before Anant gets real and begins to rival LV and LN for quality at half the price? (And of course, LV and LN represent a better capitalist model for we consumers and perhaps even for the shareholders).
One last point that I can't resist: why do some folk take any opportunity to go into a nationalistic spasm every time this subject comes up? There is plenty of junk made in every part of the world, including America. Gawd, look at yer food (so-called)!
Lataxe, who rarely buys a new frock.
Edited 2/12/2008 4:11 am ET by Lataxe
You're a Brit...and you're complaining about American food?!?
It's not the capitalist model itself--it's the look-only-as-far-as-the-next-quarter capitalist model.
-Steve
Tell me some foods America is renown for that's not a hot dog or beef burgers.
Off the top of my head:
Barbecue (ribs, brisket, etc.)
Zinfandel
Gumbo
Chili con carne/chili sin carne
Cioppino
-Steve
Apple Pie.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
OK USANigel, food it is. Here is an American FOod Smackdown Challenge:
The others have mentioned some regional favorites, but here are a few more that specifically come from the new world: turkey; squash; potatos; tomatos; wild rice; chocolate. Now think of all the dishes made with those. Here are some good American dishes: Roast turkey; blackened redfish; conch fritters; pumpkin pie; pecan pie; blackberry cobbler; gooseberry pie; goose and wild rice casserole; corn on the cob; cream of wild rice and chicken soup; new England clam chowder; New England clam bake; broiled Maine lobster; sourdough bread; maple syrup; crawfish etouffe; softshell crabs on toast; lots of beef recipes; smithfield ham; nachos (no, they are NOT Mexican, as any Mexican will tell you, but they are good).
The list can be a lot longer -- but it is lunchtime and I an hungry.
Cheers!
Joe
I understand a business needs to make a proffit, and deservidaly so. But the problem I have is say on a $15 to $20 hand tool. A 5 cent (retail) cost part could make the whole product much better. And yet they still choose to go with the cheaper part. Now I know if you make 100,000 tools that 5 cents each adds up. Even with single digit net income that nickel part (probably less than half that to a major buyer) is not even .002% of that items cost! And with most stores rounding items up to .95 or .99, could probably be even absorbed by them as well without much damage to their bottom line as well.
If there is another item that buyer conceive to be identical then trying to sell for $0.05 more than the next guy could mean a big lose in sales volume. (In a perfectly competive market you would sell none at all.)
You must understand that when these BIG companies are looking at costs, they are REALLY LOOKING DEEP. One of my best friends worked years for Philco Ford. They made the radios for Ford automobiles. The bids on parts went down to one-quarter of a penny, and would change parts for one-quarter of a penny. I am not sheetin you: 1/4 of a cent dictated a change.
So what happens in the real world is this. HomeDumpo goes to Andersen and says, "Hey, we like the looks of this here winnderr that you want $258 for, and we want 40,000 of 'em, but we won't pay more than $143.22 for it.
So, the window company looks at how many thousands of windows they could sell, then they cut the corners, change the materials, and do whatever it takes to make this unit "look" like t'other one, albeit at 40% less. This is exactly what happens all day long.
change the materials, and do whatever it takes to make this unit "look" like t'other one, albeit at 40% less.
So, I'm wondering if that means that all the other NON HomeDumpo stores are selling the same thing?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Certainly not in all cases. Dewalt plate/joiners from HD have had a different motor than the others, plumbing fixtures from Moen and Kohler may well have different internal parts than the ones sold at the plumbing supply store. It's like lumber--HD is willing to take 2x4's from batches that have had the cream skimmed. Why else do 80% of the sticks contain the pith or are waney.
Given that I've gotten 2x4s that both have the pith and are also waney, I just assumed that they were all being cut from plantation trees that are only 92-5/8" tall.
-Steve
Yeah, one per tree right!?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Often not. Another friend of mine has an ACE hardware store. They sell some building materials. While many things are exactly the same item as FallMart, HomeDumpo and Lowedown sells, others are major manufacturers who have "recreated" a model to "look" like a popular model, with dumbed down specs.
Windows and doors are notorious for this practice. Plywood, too. Some power tools such as sanders, circ saws, etc. High ticket or high volume items.
You have to check the model numbers if you want to know for sure. If they are different from one another, even in the slightest, then it's not the same thing internally, regardless of how perfectly it mimics the original.
A similar example to this is comparing a plant at home depot with the same species at the finest nursery in town. Home Depot stocks plants that have been passed over by an enormous amount of buyers for nurseries and land-scapers. They will sell an atrocious peony for 40% of what a nursery would and probably capture 9 out of 10 customers, if not more.
I'm in the plant business and I'm sitting here nodding my head up and down and laughing. Man, you are dead on.
Steve,
I agree - I like capitalism for the same reason I like religion - they got us where we are today and have generated many excellent effects for we humans. Naturally I hope they will be superseded by even better and more advantageous procedures, in due course, with even less of the nasty side effects than leak from unalloyed profit-seeking and god-bothering. (I have no idea what those evolved procedures will be).
Of course, all things must pass and one mode evolves into the next. That "next quarter" mode of capitalism seems self-defeating in the final analysis and there have been signs that a more mature profit-making model is emerging to take it's place. Those fine people at LV and LN are examples but there are surely many more.
Some firms never did go through the "next quarter" cycle and have always produced high quality goods. Perhaps they are the same firms as avoided that "max out short-term profit" demand from shareholders or markets somehow? I am no economist so I don't know. But as a consumer I know only too well what not to buy....
Lataxe, hoping his tools will outlast him and always be potentially more capable than he is.
PS, That list of deicious American recipes is a fine list. Now all you have to do is get rid of that agri-business farming mode so the meat doesn't taste like hormone-cardboard and the veggies have more than colour and water in them. :-)
The problem with American restaurant food is that the median level of quality is at best "barely tolerable." If you were to randomly select a hole-in-the-wall restaurant just about anywhere in Europe (at least Western Europe; I've never traveled in Eastern Europe), chances are that the food would be very good. Do that in the US, and chances are that the food would be very bad. Excellent restaurants do exist all over the US; they're just harder to find.
-Steve
Off topic but I agree. I work for an airline as a maintenance inspector and travel the world. There are alot of cookie cutter resturants in the US that are supplied by Gordon, Sysco, and the like. Where everything is the same cheap bland stuff. If you really look though, you can find some gems.
Now overseas especially in Europe, I have yet to eat at a place where the meal was not tasty. Unfortunately due to the Euro the price has gone up dramatically. A corner steak house I like in Germany the price is now almost double than it was before they went from the mark to the Euro (value of the dollar has made it even worse now). Asia is a little different as sometimes (most) I have no clue what I am ordering. Been unlucky a few times. And I don't even want to discuss my week long trip to Kazakhstan.
that must be very interesting work
To be honnest, I would rather be back home working at a lumber yard or hardware store (did that in college). I make decent money and can't turn back now. I work 2 weeks away from home, 1 week off. Sometimes that works out nice. But the constant traveling gets to you after a while. On the maintenance side anyway. I don't know too many people that still enjoy their work. They all want out. But because of bills, family, or other obligations, they can't quit. There are young and up and comming guys that like it. But most over 6-7 years in, really wish they had made other choices. Just trodding along hoping somthing will magically come up. Even worse now that several majors have outsourced their maintenance and just dumped their employees. Now you enter in the mix of not trusting your employer farther than you can toss'em. And people really want out bad! For me its not that bad yet. But it could be more enjoyable (not that work is supposed to be a picnic). There are much worse jobs to be doing out there, and I realize that. Basically thats what keeps me going.
Well, I'm sure it works on you. You have gotten some opportunities to see some things few others do though. Best of luck. Later.
Lataxe:
You are right about the meat, but it makes it affordable and accessable to the hundreds of millions of city dwellers in quantities and at prices undrempt of until after WW2. Still, if you look and are willing to trade convenience for quality, here in the states you can buy bulk from the ranchers and farmers and store it at home or in a rental freezer. You get much better quality, and a much lower price. When I had four children at home, we'd get half a steer, fed right and aged. We got ground beef and stew meat, but also fillet and tenderloin of the highest quality -- all at about the price of retail ground beef. But, we had to store it.
Joe
Joe,
I appreciate the "got from the source" model for buying farmed food. I was a vegetarian for about 25 years as there was no practical way to avoid agri-business meat and I objected strongly to their torture regimes. I would eat a nice (wild) rabbit pie or a pheasant off the fell, mind.
These days many farmers hereabouts have seen some kind of light and are producing meat via good organically-grown feed regimes (no hormones, sheep brain-cake, pesticide-silage or other nasties). They also kill the beasts locally and humanely without the transport N hundred miles in a packed wagon to a nasty stockyard, where they have to stand for hours or days smelling blood and death.
Best of all, the "New Farmers" produce meat that tastes divine, both in it's normal state and within delicious sausages or similar. Mmmmmm!
Mr Normal wants cheap meat because he's been told he should have it, even if it does taste like wet cardboard and require that torture regime. He gets i with the chemicals too, so soon he has them unpleasnt side effects that we cannot discuss here. He would be better off eating a nice nut cutlet and a cauliflower. I ate veggie for all them years and didn't die from lack of nutrition. No indeed, I was and am a strapper. I would show you my bicep but womenfolk might faint. :-)
Nut cutlets for all!
Lataxe, a caring carnivore
From the source is indeed the best way.
We eat lots of vegetables -- and a fair proportion are from our garden. We are only a month from fresh asparagus! Only 6 or 8 weeks from radishes, cabbages, broccoli and lettuce! Only 14 weeks from fresh tomatos, corn and beans! Only 16 weeks from fresh melons! Then peaches will be coming in, and then pears. Life is good.
We also eat quite a bit of game; venison, duck, goose and grouse, witht he occasional doves and pheasants -- all provided by ourselves or given by friends. Very tasty, that.
However, for people locked in the cities, gardens are scarce and small, and meat is what you get when you go to the store.
Of course, it could be Soylent Green
Cheers!
Joe
Hi Joe,
All your comments about the food sounds like the wife and I. We eat much the same as you except our veggie growing season doesn't start till about mid May!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
The rustic life is a good life. The children and animals have room to run, and we have all the other benefits of peace and quiet and the gardens. Unfortunately, the quiet is somewhat compromised as metro Dallas and suburbs reach their tenticles out.
Gardening is made easier by the horses, who spend all day converting money into manure. Therefore, we have the basis for large quantities of very good compost. If I am ambitions I build hot piles, if not, I just cycle it on a two-year cycle and get very good compost the lazy way.
Our average last frost date is March 20th. I used to push it using cloches and Wall-O-Water devices, but am really too busy now and besides, it turns out that everything works better if I just wait until the soil is warmer in mid-April. Of course, the spring crops like brussels sprouts, spinach, radishes and Broccoli need to go in very soon. If we wait too long, they hold over into the warm season and waste space -- and also often go to seed and get bitter.
Joe,
Holy smoly, we have two horses and we do about the same thing. Too much weed seed if you use it too soon. It does seem to be a bit acidic but nothing a little lime won't cure.
Our garden plot is relatively small as it's only the wife and I. Last fall we mad some bins filled them with horsesh(t and have been throwing all the food scraps in and will let 'er cook this spring/summer for next year.
Our last frost date is typically around Memorial Day but we put the cold weather crops in the garden at the beginning of May. It has been known to snow at any time, once on Mothers Day in June but doesn't last.
Rural living, lovin every minute of it as the '80s group Loverboy once said.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob:
I do a lot of sheet composting these days (no pun intended). In raised beds, we spread stall cleanings (shavings and manure) onto the bed up to about 4 to 5 inches thick, starting as soon as the crop in them is out, and stopping in late November. By next spring, it is good mulch, on the way to compost. A year later it is wonderful compost/soil, with the new year's layer on top as mulch. Saves a lot of labor.
Joe
Joe,
Been doin that for years now with the grass clippings and manure underneath in the rows between the plants. Next year, add a little lime and the paths become the rows, alternating each year. Almost to a point now where they ain't many weeds!
Last fall we erected a greenhouse; the kind with the aluminum poles and plastic cover. It'll be a new adventure this spring. Plan to use it to start plants for the garden then put tomatoes and such in there for the summer. Gotts max. the growing season here as it's so short.
Maybe we should shuffle off to Fine Gardening!
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 2/13/2008 10:43 am ET by KiddervilleAcres
"When did the quality of some well known tool companies start their downfall? Has it been creeping up on us? Is there a time period where it definately happened?..." I will offer my $.02 with a specific year. In Detroit, many of you will remember the Hudson's Department Store - Thanksgiving Day parade. Hudson's was a top quality, full-service department store. They had beautiful display windows, a full complement of delivery trucks, sold 'everything' from stoves, refrigerators, clothing, carpets and jewelry. All was top quality with a 'satisfaction guaranteed' policy.It was in 1953, I believe, that a "Discount Store, opened on the fringes of the city. They sold appliances and the lot at a substantial discount. Soon those items were no longer offered by Hudson's. Other stores and other 'discounted' products followed - and before not-too-long, Hudson's was purchased by Dayton's. They, in turn were purchased by Marshall Field's then Macy's.The country became consumed by discounts. How many times have we seen comments on this forum about "where can I buy this item for $ xx less? or "Festool costs too much."As Pogo used to say, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"Frosty"I sometimes think we consider the good fortune of the early bird and overlook the bad fortune of the early worm." FDR - 1922
Lataxe,
I spend a lot of time in England working. Now a days it's mostly in London but a few years ago I lived in Brigg, North Lincs and worked in Immingham. One thing I always look forward to is a nice dinner of traditional English food: Chicken Tiki Masalla!!
OK, I'm just kiddin' you. Hope you can smile about that one.
One thing the US doesn't have that is a "staple" in the UK are mince pies at Christmas. Although, they shoud be regulated as a drug, I gained two stone last Dec...
Good luck, have fun and keep all your fingers attached to your hands...
Fred
Also, I say because I have my own business, is that the government's take of the pie is so much larger now. It has increased, especially over the 1980s and 90s. Margins for most businesses are way slimmer than they were 30 years ago.
In my industry, agriculture, say 35 years ago when I started, for each dollar we invested we got $1.25-1.30 in return. Today it's more like $1.05-1.07, not withstanding natural disasters.
When margins are really tight, you naturally start analyzing costs and volumes through a finer microscope. I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying it's the reality of the times.
As a business person, we pay over half of the social security that individuals used to pay themselves. Nowadays we pay for the uninsured. We pay for an incredibly larger pool of government workers in all levels of government. And so on. That has cut into the pie, and because margins are lower, volumes are the key way to increase the bottom line. This manifests into economies of scale, and why the BIG guys can make it and the small ones struggle.
Just my view of things based on personal experience in business.
BC
Having worked for the government and being in private business makes it tough to disagree with anything you wrote. Lots of guys here at Knots think they might like to take the big jump into the furniture building world. Its a big jump and it takes some major adjusting for the first few years. The paper work alone to have an employee is just daunting.
I live in North Carolina and I am surrounded with mass produced furniture. It looks just like furniture, it shines, the price is fair but... its not that nice. Now its mostly made in other countries. Recently, I was searching for a fairly large batch of veneer and I found a major supplier here in NC. I went up for a visit and to keep it short the guy said "you need to triple your order to get me to go out in the warehouse" and look around. Nuf said.
The guy was real nice and we talked a few minutes about the furniture industry. He has to send all of this veneer to a distant country, they build the furniture, put it back on a boat and sell it 5 miles from his veneer warehouse and 20 miles from where it used to be made in High Point. By his figures he can not find a cost savings with the price of shipping going up so fast. You figure it out?? I am lost on that logic. It just seems so energy inefficient.
dan
Edited 2/13/2008 5:53 pm ET by danmart
Dan, that's an incredible story. It's a strange world, brother.
Steve
Good point. Look at all the crap being slung at LN in the thread regarding Cosman. Everyone is up in arms over a company letting a well liked 'distributor' (middleman, whatever you want to call him) when they actually don't need him anymore.
Wallstreet attitudes would have dictated that move about 5 or 6 years ago.
We, as Americans, screwed ourselves the moment we put price as THE deciding factor over quality. There's no way that any American manufacturing company can compete, PRICE WISE, with products manufactured in a third world country without labor laws. So, why try?
yada, yada, yada.....
Jeff
It's not a universal "we", its the 60% of the people in the middle of the income scale. The lower 20% have always had to have price as their only criterion. The top 20% still can go after other attributes. But the middle part, which has seen it's income stagnate or fall over the last decade, have been increasingly driven to price considerations. If those folks had been increasing their income by 3% a year in real terms things would likely be much, much different.
Seems to me that a lot of things have gone down hill quality wise I would say the starting point would be WW2. Not that I am that old:) I think what has changed is that there is no middle ground on quality you either have Lie-Nielsen quality or cheep home-center junk. You could transfer this over to hardware like door knobs and hinges. At one time standard builder hardware was of decent quality an example would be the door knobs and hinges on my 1930s house. Now you go to a home center and buy junk or you pay an arm and a leg for Baldwin Brass. Anyway all we can do is buy the best we can afford.
Have fun
Troy
I was just a lad in the early forties so I could easily have gotten the wrong idea but, as I recall, the Black and Decker had the reputation of being compared with the best. After civilian production began again, shortly after the war, that reputation of putting out a quality tool took a steady decline. I think they pioneered in that decline.
Edited 2/11/2008 11:27 pm ET by Tinkerer3
Who says tool quality has gone down? Sure some brands have certainly suffered, but overall? Lots of the tools marketed to amateurs were much inferior to what is available today. We don't see them, they have been properly relegated to the junk yard rather than the used tool market--perhaps now undergoing their fourth reincarnation in a car fender.
Don't confuse the decline of one brand with decline overall. Sure Stanley hand planes have declined, but there are a number of brands that are superior to the best Stanley ever produced--Lie-Nielsen and Veritas--for example. Are they priced more? I'm not sure they are when considered as a multiple of the hourly working-man's wage. Remember, the old Stanleys were professional tools--now replaced almost exclusively with power tools except for the occasional block plane. Amateurs have the luxury of dressing wood by hand.
The market is filled with the examples of creative destruction as superior alternatives replace the old. The response by the old manufacturers is to shift niches. Stanley planes are now for homeowners who think they need a plane because they have two doors that are sticking.
I agree with Steve and disagree with Steve (agreeing with Schoene).People who know steel and recognize quality generally agree that the decline in hand tools happened soon after WW2. Pre WW2 tools show variation in quality, depending on the market they were meant to serve, but in general had the higher quality steel and the more reliable and functional designs.It wasn't Wall Street or Bean Counters that took down the quality of regular hand tools, it was the fact that the trades switched to power tools. Few tradesmen these days know how to use handtools to full advantage. For one thing, few know how to sharpen. Why should they? Power tools will do the job, and generally faster. So, when the volume buyers, men (mostly, pace women)who knew what they were holding and demanded tools that would work well and last, stopped buying, the tool lines were cheapened.Now, however, is a web-enabled explosion of interest in good hand tools. However, this is not a mass market like Stanley and Disston enjoyed in the days of yore. It is a hobby and "high-craft" market. Therefore it is being well served by boutique makers and vendors. Much of what is being sold now exceeds the quality of many of the old tools, but at a price.Power tool quality wobbles around. Some of that is truly Bean Counter driven, but some is brand positioning etc. For example B&D has become a homeowner line (meaning inexpensive, and for light and undemanding duty), but the same company sells DeWalt as a commercial line. DeWalt may not be the best at everything, but they make some good tools.In the final analysis, if enough people are willing to pay for quality, they'll get it, though perhaps at a high price. they can get it today. If the market gets big enough, manufacturing economies of scale kick in and quality can be had less expensively.Don't blame Wall Street for shoddiness. Blame consumers who will not pay for quality and will accept shoddiness.Joe
Joe,
they'll get it, though perhaps at a high price
Just an observation, but I'm curious as to how a Lie Nielsen plane would compare today price-wise, to what a craftsman would have paid for the Stanley equivalent back in Stanleys hayday?
Given the resale price holding the the LN planes enjoy I would bet they might actually cheaper!
I still think Beancounters = Wall Street. They all have the same mentality - PROFIT!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Indeed, Bob, and Stanley was there to make profit, and my firm is here to make profit. There aren't too many choices -- either we make a profit, or we figure out how to transfer our costs to the general public through taxes, or we go broke.
Lie Nielsen is out to make a profit, too, and is probably doing a good job of it. Oddly, nobody shoots at him for his prices and margins; just at Stanley for their quality.
However, few people realize how little profit there is in American business. I have seen literally hundreds of financial statements, have gotten into the guts of them, and thoroughly understood them (and NO, I am not an accountant or Bean Counter of any kind and just hate the process of accounting). The fact is, few companies net more than a few cents on the dollar before tax. People who think that business rack up 20% to 40% pre-tax are just ignorant of real business conditions. The 20% to 40% figure is what we call Gross Margin -- and it can be higher -- typical retail GM is at about 50%. Gross Margin is what you get when you subtract the cost of your materials from your sales. It tells you how much you have left to pay employees, utilities, all operating expenses, debt service, and taxes.
Cheers!
Joe
Edited 2/12/2008 1:18 pm ET by Joe Sullivan
Very well put. Thanks.
"When did the quality of some well known tool companies start their downfall? Has it been creeping up on us? Is there a time period where it definately happened?..."
The earliest drop in quality I'm aware of is the introduction of double iron bench planes in the 1700's. Those who persist in claiming this represents an improvement don't understand that double iron planes replaced the traditional pitches of single iron planes. Cap irons are supposed to work by simulating the deflection angle of the steeper pitches but cap irons just don't perform as well. Double irons made production easier but also introduce a number of problems for the user.
If one takes a bunch of Anglo-American wooden planes made from the mid 18th Century to the end of commercial production in the 1960's (1925 in the US), the steady decline in quality is dramatically apparent. Each change you'll see was made to facilitate ease of production or lower production costs. You may also see an occasional marketing gimmick that's of little or no functional value.
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