How to calculate honing guide protrusion?

[D_W]

Given who they sell most of their tools to (beginners who think that they need something like that instead of one of the $15 stainless shinwa types that will last for life), I'd guess they get complaints if they don't sell gear at that price level.

They are a good company (honest, so far as I can tell, they haven't substantially raised prices in 20 years for their own gear as they get better and better at making it), but I don't think they're led by people who do much woodwork.

 

[D_W]

I hope that prior post is taken the way I meant it. I think LN has good intentions. So does LV. I think it's also hard to run a business and get fat rich off of the business practices they operate under (enough so that it was surprising to hear early on that when LN and woodcraft were in a spat here about production numbers - woodcraft wanted more planes and wanted them guaranteed - LN couldn't just expand. They were waiting on the bank to find out if they could even do so and how they could finance it. Strangely enough, they were using the sometimes unpopular strategy of making planes for not much profit and paying their workers fairly. I get the sense that the improvement in volume has been due to investment in CNC, and very specific investment in it - thus slow introduction of new stuff, but that there's still a lot of well paid folks.

Here in the states, we would say "they're mainers. what do you expect?" People in Maine don't like big business in general and don't appreciate tactics of aggressive growth and pushing employees around. The honest truth is, if you're going to make tools as well as LN does, you're not going to sell them for any less than they do.

I consider myself relatively easy to please with tools (I don't send them back, I fix them), but there are few of us.