Remake of Preston Router Plane

[Andy Kev.]

It may be that this has escaped your attention:

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... uter-plane

The video clip offers a fairly good explanation.

The only thing that gets me about this sort of thing is why is no UK firm picking up on these sort of opportunities to breathe new life into things from our industrial heritage? Well done to the yanks though.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

The only thing that gets me about this sort of thing is why is no UK firm picking up on these sort of opportunities to breathe new life into things from our industrial heritage?

To be fair, there are quite a few. Philly, Shane Skelton, Karl Holtey and a fair selection of infill makers down the years. Then there's Flinn's with both saws and now the Clifton range - the Clifton shoulder planes are pretty well direct Preston descendants. Ashley Iles and Henry Taylor still make tools by the old traditional methods too. Maybe it's not quite as bleak as you think!

The market for the more way-out tools must be very niche, and if there is one, it's probably more in the States than the UK. You also have to be a little bit careful about intellectual property copying some of the more recent designs, but that one has been out of production so long, I can't see there being too much of a problem.

Edit to add - I forgot Ray Iles!

 

[Andy Kev.]

I understand what you mean but I was being fairly specific: the makers you mention are indeed producing good tools which are up there with the best. What I was meaning is more like keeping an eye out for an opportunity as the chaps in question with the router have done by enhancing a pretty good design. There are, for instance, the various Preston gadgets based around spokeshave-type handles. Perhaps a maker could redo those as modules i.e. you buy the handle and the first module you want e.g. the quirk router and then when you want the ovolo shave you just buy that module and screw it into the handle. This is more or less the principle which L-N has employed in redoing the eclipse honing guide but with a choice of grips for the various tools.

 

[bugbear]

I understand what you mean but I was being fairly specific: the makers you mention are indeed producing good tools which are up there with the best. What I was meaning is more like keeping an eye out for an opportunity as the chaps in question with the router have done by enhancing a pretty good design. There are, for instance, the various Preston gadgets based around spokeshave-type handles. Perhaps a maker could redo those as modules i.e. you buy the handle and the first module you want e.g. the quirk router and then when you want the ovolo shave you just buy that module and screw it into the handle. This is more or less the principle which L-N has employed in redoing the eclipse honing guide but with a choice of grips for the various tools.

Ideas aren't the problem. Enough sales, at a profit-making price is the problem.

BugBear

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Ideas aren't the problem. Enough sales, at a profit-making price is the problem.

BugBear

Yeah - I think that's the nub of it. To build a business sufficient to sustain one family in such a niche market is very hard, to sustain several employees as well would be pretty well impossible for such small niche tools. The likes of Clifton and Henry Taylor do have products that sell in larger volumes (but still not large), but even they are basically very small businesses - I doubt the entire Ashley Iles workforce numbers more than about ten or a dozen. Maybe for someone doing it as a sideline to their main source of income it might work, but there's more to running a business than just knocking out a few tools in the garage and flogging them - there's the marketing to be done and paid for, sales to pack and despatch, customers' queries to answer, and all the other administrative tasks. I daresay it's possible for someone determined enough, but it's not an easy thing to do and make anything like a profit.

 

[t8hants]

Judging by the prices old hand routers are making on the bay, they are not considered that way out.
I like the thought that has gone into the new offering, shame I'll never be able to justify the cost of one.

 

[Tony Zaffuto]

Judging by the prices old hand routers are making on the bay, they are not considered that way out.
I like the thought that has gone into the new offering, shame I'll never be able to justify the cost of one.

Same thoughts here, and with spendind an hour or two by adding a subbase, much of what this router does could be duplicated. In fact a piece of 1/4" polycarbonate clear plastic (very stiff, yet easily worked), a subbase could be worked up, by which its position is changed and not the cutter.

Regardless the Walke unit is nice, but its rectangular design is a copy of the Preston, which always looked more useable to me than the Stanley or MF shape.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Ideas aren't the problem. Enough sales, at a profit-making price is the problem.

BugBear

Yeah - I think that's the nub of it. To build a business sufficient to sustain one family in such a niche market is very hard, to sustain several employees as well would be pretty well impossible for such small niche tools. The likes of Clifton and Henry Taylor do have products that sell in larger volumes (but still not large), but even they are basically very small businesses - I doubt the entire Ashley Iles workforce numbers more than about ten or a dozen. Maybe for someone doing it as a sideline to their main source of income it might work, but there's more to running a business than just knocking out a few tools in the garage and flogging them - there's the marketing to be done and paid for, sales to pack and despatch, customers' queries to answer, and all the other administrative tasks. I daresay it's possible for someone determined enough, but it's not an easy thing to do and make anything like a profit.

Yep that's fair comment and I'm not enough of a businessman (in fact I'm not a businessman at all) to offer sensible comment on the commercial aspects of such a venture.

 

[Tony Zaffuto]

BB has it right. I employ close to 50 people, and in spite of a significant investment in a provisional patent (US), I abandoned commercial pursuit of the application (powder metal material and process). A mouse trap can be miles better in refinement, but in the end the fifty cent model works as well as the five dollar model.

 

[pedder]

The only thing that gets me about this sort of thing is why is no UK firm picking up on these sort of opportunities to breathe new life into things from our industrial heritage?

But "they" do. Look at Matthew from Workshopheaven, who makes or let made the Record #43. There you have great example for the problems, too. I can buy an old Records for 100 GBP less all the day.

Cheers
Pedder

 

[Andy Kev.]

The only thing that gets me about this sort of thing is why is no UK firm picking up on these sort of opportunities to breathe new life into things from our industrial heritage?

But "they" do. Look at Matthew from Workshopheaven, who makes or let made the Record #43. There you have great example for the problems, too. I can buy an old Records for 100 GBP less all the day.

Cheers
Pedder

I wasn't aware of that at all and the innovation/improvement aspect (in this case an excellent example) is part of what I was on about. The other part concerns the fact that too few things are actually getting made in the UK. In this case it has been contracted out to a foreign manufacturer. Now while I'm sure that there are sound economic reasons for doing that (i.e. costs), how can it be that small US firms are prepared to take the work on themselves but not British firms?

There is clearly a market for high quality tools. It's probably not huge but I suspect it is growing slowly as more people turn away from mass produced rubbish to making their own stuff and I also suspect that, having made this decision, they are the kind of people who would not baulk at a slightly higher price for quality made gear from home manufacturers. Consider that L-N prices are, at first glance, outrageous but they do very well in the US market and of course internationally. The reason for this is that people realise that money spent on quality is money well spent.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

It's true that there's a market for high quality tools, but the inevitable high(er) price tag must limit the size of that market. It's a good thing they are available, because choice is always a good thing.

One of the factors tending to work against the high quality lesser-used tools is the total price of a kit of tools. Even taking the pared down lists of essential tools in references like The Anarchist's Tool Chest, to buy only premium new hand tools would mean a bill of several thousand pounds. Thus, I suspect that whilst many people are keen to have some 'nice' tools, they have to compromise on others to stretch the budget enough to cover the basics. Thus, most tool kits are a mix of premium new, premium secondhand, fettled budget new, and home-made. Following that logic, I suspect most people would put their money for new premium tools into things that would be used frequently, such as bench planes or bench chisels, or where accuracy was key such as marking-out tools. The lesser-used tools would be more likely candidates for making or scrounging.

On the question of why UK makers are slow to come forward with new tools, there is the problem that manufacturing anything in the UK is expensive. Rent and rates for premises are high, energy costs are high (cf steel industry), labour costs are high, and whilst taxation is not as high as in some EU countries, it is significantly higher than in the emerging economies. That makes manufacture challenging, and is the reason why imported far-Eastern goods sometimes cost less than the materials to make them in the UK (Silverline planes, for example).

It's still possible to make a profit making things in the UK - indeed there is more manufacturing industry about than many would suppose - but it forces manufacturers into the high price, and therefore high quality bracket, or into the very high volume with high capital-cost specialist automation bracket that just doesn't apply to woodworking tools. Maybe no bad thing to have high quality, but the high price limits the market to niches. I suspect the niche for lesser-used high quality tools is just too small at the moment to make development and tooling costs viable, though it's a good thing to see some emerging since that might start to create the demand that makes it viable for others to enter the market. We shall see!

 

[Tony Zaffuto]

CC: From the US perspective, I look to the UK as having a larger percentage of woodworking professionals than the US (not a larger number, just a greater percentage that can be considered a professional). Because of that, is it possible in the modern market place, that the UK perspective is more towards tools as tools used to make a living instead of the US perspective of tools as "adornments" and "future, valuable antiques"?

I would also suspect that the UK kit is comprised more of the necessary tools, with less "dosh" as Jacob would say. Why do I say this? The major reason is by reading various forums, and the breadth of topics & participants. This forum is about expediency of the craft whereas most US are about the tools, with opinions formed, tools bought & sold, along with methods, with all subject to change by the blog-o-sphere. In others, to your last sentence, I disagree, and believe the niche for higher quality tools is limited more by a lack of need than anything. Sharpening? what is the cost/benefit of going beyond a hard Arkansas? Exotic metals in plane irons? what is the cost/benefit of buying a LN smoother versus learning how to use your #3 or #4 Bailey?

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Tony: From what I see of UK pro woodworkers (by which I mean carpenters and joiners doing household, commercial and industrial work, kitchen fitters, shopfitters and the like, and a small number engaged in furnituremaking) they are as power-tool orientated as anybody else. Indeed, I'd hazard that some use handtools only rarely. Certainly, the mainstream tool dealers (not the small niche handtool specialists) are probably about 95% power tools and machines, and a good proportion of their handtool sales will be screwdrivers and pliers rather than premium bench planes.

However - I think there is one difference, and that is that the UK remained hand-work oriented in the professional field for at least a couple of decades after the US. Marples, for example, only ceased commercial scale wooden plane making in the mid 1960s, and Paul Sellers served his apprenticeship in the mid 1960s using hand tool techniques a lot - he still does, of course! - as did many of his contemporaries. Thus, there are a lot of decent secondhand tools about in the UK, the steady supply pushing prices down to well below US levels. I suspect that reflects in the current US trend to buying new rather than old - if a beaten-up secondhand tool costs 75% the price of a decent new one, it's worth springing for the extra to avoid having to sort out the inevitable problems. Not universal, of course, and not necessarily true everywhere in the States.

I suspect that might reflect in the difference in the general flavour of the different forums - we do a lot of tool refurbishment in the UK because the old tools are readily available and often dirt cheap (or at least they would be if Paul Sellers would pipe down!). Not so in the US, so comparing the new tool offerings is more relevant to most of the readership of the US forums.

Personally, I rather like the variety between the different forums, and long may it continue, I say!

 

[G S Haydon]

Think you have that well defined CC. There are so many excellent vintage tools in the UK at a price point where most people can pick them up. In addition many were used when hand work was still part of the workflow to a significant degree. Therefore most of the vintage stuff is well proven in a professional arena.

For those that need it the best thing about quality new is there is little to do to get good results. However there is improving access to information about using tools to the point where with a minimal amount of time people can have secondhand tools working very well.