speeder1987
Established Member
I never liked Clifton because to me they just seemed a bit boring, but having seen that video its made me appreciate how beautifully engineered they are!
John
John
Peter Sefton":2mm4nbzk said:well said that man, are we missing the point? Why have such good English made planes been dropped?
Tom K":2xjqmqae said:How did a thread berating Axi for dropping Clifton turn into the end for Clico? Who may well be jogging along quite nicely selling through other outlets. :?
Peter Sefton":pv2n6sys said:Mick Hudson from Clifton has shown me a prototype Block plane at one of my Open days and it looks like a winner, not sure if its going into production but I do hope so, and that we have a more American attitude to our British made goods I know I have been to ready to believe over hyped Marketing and less inclined to go with honest English engineers. Let’s hope after the Olympics we can put the Great back into Britain!
jimi43":15s4x6v8 said:Tom K":15s4x6v8 said:How did a thread berating Axi for dropping Clifton turn into the end for Clico? Who may well be jogging along quite nicely selling through other outlets. :?
I think the overriding theme coming across loud and clear is that the vast majority of British woodworkers DO care enough about Clifton to want them to survive
Scouse":27yxm2lq said:jimi43":27yxm2lq said:Tom K":27yxm2lq said:How did a thread berating Axi for dropping Clifton turn into the end for Clico? Who may well be jogging along quite nicely selling through other outlets. :?
I think the overriding theme coming across loud and clear is that the vast majority of British woodworkers DO care enough about Clifton to want them to survive
Surely that's HMV syndrome; everyone is upset and outraged at the demise of HMV, a great old British company, but these are the same people who bought all their Christmas DVD's from Amazon! If the vast majority of British woodworkers care about Clifton, why do so many on here extol the virtues of Quangsheng and cry over the loss of British craftsmanship? The same applies as to why Axminster can't shift stock in the same way as they clearly do with L/N.
It's not Axminster's fault if Clifton won't help themselves. They are in a unique promotional position, being a toolmaker in the most famous steel making city in the world, they're almost invisible when their competitors are everywhere.
I'm as proud as anyone to be British and I hope, for the sake of the skilled workers, that Clifton will be ok and that that the incompetent management gets a wake up call from Axminster. I'm not holding my breath.
Peter Sefton":3v96i5uo said:Mick Hudson from Clifton has shown me a prototype Block plane at one of my Open days and it looks like a winner, not sure if its going into production but I do hope so,
Cheshirechappie":36e0dnpg said:I'm not sure I'd be quite so quick to describe Clico's management as 'incompetent'. Their products are very good, they are managing to survive in a high tax, high energy cost environment with a relatively labour intensive business, and their service to people contacting them with problems of whatever sort has been reported as very helpful by people posting on this forum. So they're doing some things right.
grinder":1lz9n5gb said:Hi my name is Geoff I work for Clico who manufacture Clifton planes. I think it is sad that people start these rumours without giving it any thought of the damage that may be caused. I assemble every bench plane that leaves the factory and I hope this stops the rumours thanks
Scouse":yiytuiis said:Cheshirechappie":yiytuiis said:I'm not sure I'd be quite so quick to describe Clico's management as 'incompetent'. Their products are very good, they are managing to survive in a high tax, high energy cost environment with a relatively labour intensive business, and their service to people contacting them with problems of whatever sort has been reported as very helpful by people posting on this forum. So they're doing some things right.
Their products and customer service are good due to the skills of the metal workers and CS representatives, not effective management.
You hit the nail on the head when you say 'managing to survive', hardly a ringing endorsement of a successful forward looking company.
As for what I'd do, I would PROMOTE! I did a lot of research before I bought my planes, and the lack of access to any meaningful information on Clifton put me off. An indifferent review from Chris Schwarz and a 'How It's Made' documentary by an AMERICAN company is not enough if they want to do better than just 'survive' in a market against North American big hitters.
They have valuable unique selling points which they just disregard. And it costs them money; I would have rather spent my money on Cliftons, but a couple of general pages on a site and not even 'Clifton.com' but hidden within Clico's domain and half ar*ed when you find it (reversed photograph??? Very professional looking...).
Google Clifton planes and they are 9th on the list. Why are they not first with their own domain name? Schwarz's bad review is the first hit on Google. Why have they not tried to counter this? A reply? Rebuttal? Send him another plane?
Any other Youtube videos? Demonstrations? Explanations of the range? Explaining why they are better? It's cheap advertising, thats why L/N and Veritas do it. Why not Clifton?
If I can see this, and I just make violins, why can't they? Surely it's very basic stuff. They may as well just give potential customers L/N's phone number.
Yeah, the management are really great.
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