Jeff had mentioned (publicly) on woodnet, IIRC, that WC was trying to find domestic options for making planes, but as you're probably aware, there isn't much made here of relatively low value, and most US industry would see a relatively precisely made device that wholesales for $250 as being low value. I wasn't surprised to see nothing ever come of that.
David, it is clear that Woodcraft was seeking a cheaper option (than LN) to sell. Perhaps even an option with a higher production rate. However, none of that excuses a company deliberately taking someone else's product and copying it as exactly as they could, even down to the trade dress (with the same brass lever cap). And faults and all! It was absolutely obvious that they were attempting to offer the public the same fare but cheaper, and at a cheaper production cost - which did not mean the same quality (the adjuster on Mk 1 was a really wimpy length of steel). This is not about competing with another by developing a product oneself - this was about stealing the R&D of LN and not paying for it. (Yes, the LN planes are based on Stanley models, but they are not cast from Stanley planes. The WR planes were cast directly from LN models. It is about profit margins. Clifton took the same high ground that LN did - they developed their own version of the Stanley Bedrock). Woodcraft sent across actual LN planes to the QS factory to copy. That is theft, and there is no other way to refer to it. The fact that they brought out a Mk 2 which was completely different is evidence for this.
All this left a bad taste in the mouth of the generation of woodworkers that were around on the forums at that time. There are a whole bunch of others for whom the history is missing and the emotions are absent. They are likely puzzled at the animosity aimed at QS. The Mk 3 QS plane is a really nice, quality tool. It is now closer to a Stanley copy than a LN copy. The trade dress is no longer saying "LN on the cheap. Fool your mates". I would recommend it as a good plane.
Regards from Perth
Derek
I don't disagree that they were probably trying to stretch their share vs. LN, but you may not recall that on the ground here, there was constant complaining that people would travel a couple of hours to woodcraft and there would be no LN planes to try. I only live 25 minutes from the woodcraft that was here (I think it's gone and another one has popped up, that's the nature of franchises).
I bought a 140 copy at the woodcraft here - what a useless plane, but that's beside the point except that it was the only plane that was there. It's an illustration of what the problem was. Woodcraft obviously has a stock slot for those items (the planes) and when a consumer wants one, they want to sell them. I believe that was probably the original issue, not the price. Woodcraft charged retail. They may have hoped to charge more (and probably would have if they'd have been allowed), but they just didn't have planes in the stores.
I'm sure that also causes problems with franchisees, who have paid to open a store and then on top of that, they have high regular costs because they're in retail locations here. You go to a store looking for LN planes, you find a specialty item or something similar left and perhaps a saw (that's what I'd usually find at mine here), but I never saw a bench plane locally, so I bought elsewhere.
At the time, Tom didn't have the money to expand, and probably didn't want to take the risk, and Jeff and WC were looking to get to the front of the line to secure supply and even the small retailers would tell me (like fine tool journal) "I don't know when we'll have a number 7, they kind of do what they feel like doing down there and get us things on their own schedule".
Jeff also mentioned to me, and publicly, that they were looking to develop a plane that could be made in the US (I'm sure it would've been expensive), and they were doing the WC thing at the same time. They have staff at corporate that do some research, but I could only conclude (my opinion) that they don't know much about hand tools, because it sure wouldn't have been hard for you, me or anyone else to have fixed the issues with the initial QS tools. I don't think Rob Cosman knows as much about plane design as I do, and the idea that he really did something groundbreaking to fix their issues is sort of hocum to me. I could've done it in two hours. But they get to use his name, and he gets territory to attract students at each store in the US. Synergistic, I guess.
I told jeff at the time that I didn't like that the planes looked like LN planes, and I don't remember much of a reaction. He mentioned the US made planes and then mentioned that they were working on getting a stanley knuckle block type plane to the market (which they eventually did). AT the time the QS tool website was up, there was a dead copy of a LN 60 1/2, which is much different than stanley's plane, of course. That never made it to the market here that I recall, or perhaps it did - I was sort of done paying attention by then.
I see their supply problem, though, I saw it on the ground here. In my opinion, Tom operates at a higher ethical standard, but the people in LN don't take advice that well. They don't have to - their job is to make tools and service them. I brought to their attention early on that the stanley 8 wouldn't take their cap iron, and sent them one to look at. It ended up on Tom's desk and I was out of a plane to use for quite some time before it was sent back. In contrast to that, I once had an iron that I thought might be a little soft - it sharpened easily, but it held up fine. The easy sharpening left me confused, so I sent it to them and they tested it. It tested 61.5 hardness (this was one of the earlier A2 blade, not a W1 iron). I told them I was embarrassed to have wasted their time, and you know what they said? "we can send you another newer iron along with it, even though it tested in spec". I refused that - to offer a customer with a needless complaint additional goods was surprising and made me feel even more ashamed, but that's how they operate.
A few years later after I was done buying LN planes, I still had a bunch that I'd bought used, and I needed boxes. I called asking to buy boxes. They refused any money, and refused to even let me pay to have new boxes shipped to me. I told them that I'd bought the planes used, and it wasn't their responsibility, but they still refused any payment of any type.
I'd sooner have seen the original issue resolved by more LN planes being shipped to woodcraft, but whining consumers probably would've meant that a chinese plane would show up there regardless of whether or not LN planes were there. We have a whole society of entitlement now that believes if they think something is not good enough for the price or is good enough but too expensive, that someone else owes them something. I think the bronze smoother that I got from LN for something like $350 is pretty inexpensive. One only needs to try to make one as good as LN's and think about how they could make a living doing it to correct their attitude if they think otherwise.
An adherent of "cheapest it can be made anywhere" might say that QS could copy it for $200 (i'm sure they'd still manage to make some part of it substandard one way or another), but I'd have to say that if price is really an issue, a bronze number 4 is no better than 2/3rds of the old stanley planes I've gotten. Why buy a chinese plane for $150-$200 when you can have an american plane for $40, and you'll be able to do more work with it?
