The following post is really more of a diary event than a contribution to the fund of woodworking knowledge. In some ways, it's also a gloat. But I've had a very happy day which has a woodworking theme running through it, so I thought I'd share it...
My partner drove me over to a wonderful little workshop just outside Rugby today so that we could collect the Diamond AF-24VS that I had won on Ebay from Matthew, a designer and manufacturer of doll's houses and other children's toys. Matthew was a delightful gentleman; it's the nearest I've come to meeting a real-life Santa Claus. His wife had just reached retirement age so he'd decided to follow her example and also retire. As a result, his workshop was rather depleted but he still showed me some toy castles and doll's houses that were awaiting collection.
We spent quite a while discussing his production processes and how he marketed his wares. On the face of it, making children's toys is quite an idyllic occupation, but it isn't without its pressures. Matthew told me that he spent a lot of time travelling because most of his customers were in the London area – and there's only so much of the M40 and M25 motorways that a sane man can take! Also, he had to cope with personalised orders which had to be completed in time for a child's birthday. That wasn't normally a problem unless something such as contamination of a paint finish happened, but things could get quite out of hand as Christmas approached. Once, he'd even found himself delivering a doll's house which still had wet paint to a customer at 3 am on Christmas morning! Still, he always enjoyed his Christmas dinner all the more for thinking about the delighted children who'd be playing with his toys. Now that's job satisfaction!
Matthew's Diamond saw was approximately 5 years old and had been purchased to cut some figurines for a special order. He said he'd only used it a handful of times, and I could well believe him because it was in an excellent state of repair. He had a couple of spare drive belts, a variety of blades, and a fence, all of which he gave me because he would have no further use for them. I told him he was giving me probably the best value for £100 I'd ever had, but he was happy just to see the saw go and tick another box on his retirement checklist.
From Rugby, we drove to Hinckley and Doug Woodward had a look at my other Diamond AF-24VS which needed a new variable speed controller. He repaired it on the spot and only charged for the parts, not his labour; now is that good service or what?! Then he turned his attention to a slight knocking sound he'd noticed when testing the machine and found that the lower arm was lightly tapping against the motor. I wasn't even aware of this fault, but Doug detected it immediately and set to work adjusting the saw so that the tapping was eliminated. Again, there was no charge for his work! This is the sort of customer service that just doesn't seem to happen anywhere else.
Afterwards, we discussed the possibility of producing a tension release mechanism for the Diamond. I had my Hegner 2 in the car so I showed Doug how Hegner had tackled the problem. Interestingly, he had already produced a similar prototype mechanism on a Diamond upper arm. However, he wasn't happy with the design because it would mean replacing the whole arm and that would be expensive for current Diamond owners. He's trying to develop a mechanism that can be simply bolted in place and which will still allow users to rotate the saw blade when required. The only problem is that this R&D is a distraction from his production of new saws, so it may be quite a while before we see a tension release mechanism become available.
Moving slightly off topic, Doug showed me a Hobbies hand-held fretsaw his uncle had bought in 1917 and which had a cam operated tension release. This sort of device has been around for years! But what a marvelous experience it was to hold that saw. It had a pistol grip handle which was set just slightly forward of the blade and the weight of the cam release countered the weight of the saw frame. It was perfectly balanced and made from a steel that had retained its condition over the years. I could imagine myself turning to such a saw every now and again simply for the sake of nostalgia, even though I've got a selection of electric saws which are much more efficient.
I'd like to thank Doug for welcoming us once again to his workshop and taking such extraordinarily good care of us and the saw.
Gill
I like the snowflake - three sided? How'd you do that then?
