sunnybob":3buz61p5 said:
Tools and cars are not the same thing. You need to be able to maintain a tool to reasonably work, as you've got to do that several times per session in the shop. It's not assumed that the buyer of a car will know anything beyond driving it.
At any rate, these are not consumer goods like a radio, etc, and I certainly wouldn't want to pay someone at the factory to polish the back of a chisel and then hone it - we all like our chisels prepared differently, and most of us don't like to pay for that. I certainly don't. In the world of straight razors, we get razors that have been honed by someone at the factory (dovo for example). The honing job is less than optimal, but we have to pay someone there to do it. I'd rather they didn't, it's more work to clean up their job than it would be to start fresh, but they *do* assume that a lot of their buyers won't be able to hone a razor. I'd hate to be in that position, though - starting to shave with a straight razor and then having to use one that pulls at hair and doesn't cut a clean path.
The tradition of these tools goes back far enough to points where chisels were sold from makers without handles. The buyer was looking for the part of the chisel they couldn't make, and they did the rest of the fitting out themselves.
I'll bet that if AI found the need for users to buy prepared chisels, they could probably manage to do that for another 10 pounds per. I'd certainly do that.
I'd like to pat my own shoulders, as a couple of people I've shipped planes to have remarked that they've never before gotten a tool that they could take out of the box and use (I prepare the iron, hone it, set up the cap iron properly so that people can see what an appropriate set is to reduce tearout and ship the planes with the wedge in them ready to cut). The difference is that I don't expect anyone buying a wooden plane from me (for the cost of the materials that it takes for me to make it, of course - that way I don't have to listen to anyone complain about the price) to be able to figure out how to diagnose clogging or fit problems, and I actually *use* the planes enough to confirm they work well before shipping them. They are visibly used. Can you imagine the crap storm I'd get from some buyers if I actually made those tools for a profit and they showed up with minor marks of use from testing them?
3 years or so ago, a now professional planemaker and i compared notes when we were stabbing out how to make a good double iron plane. He asked if I thought I'd move on to starting to sell planes (like for more than the cost of materials) and I said "no, I'd blow my stack at buyers who think everyone should have the same return policy as amazon". I doubt he can use his planes before shipping them to make sure they work well, and so at least early on, he relaxed some of the areas in the plane (the wear, etc) to make sure that they'd function well in spite of less than optimal users.
I can't imagine what it's like for toolmakers like AI to supply something as good as their chisels are, for so little money - if the dealer gets $27, I'd be surprised if AI gets $20 or much north of that - and then be berated because someone didn't flatten backs and prepare edges. To appreciate how good the chisels are for the price, one only needs to actually try to make one as good. LN spends the money of the buyer doing lots of stuff that nobody but a newbie would want done, but that's their market - people who haven't used tools much, and in many cases, won't ever use them much or even at all. Most long term users, I'd think, would prefer the AI chisels and have no issues with setup - and be glad they didn't pay twice or three times as much for the same thing with smaller grinding marks and a square flat bevel.
