Irwin Record

Re: Irwin Record *LINK*

joel

>It's really hard to make something in England if you auction off all your machinery.

:(


Record factory auction

Re: Irwin Record

Alice Frampton, UK

>Holy smoke :~( I knew all this was happening, but actually seeing it all up for sale really brings it home. I feel like sending a wreath.

Depressed, Alf

Re: Irwin Record

John Horobin

>Yes, its very depressing. A closer look at the Irwin Record block plane indicates it is virtually unusable due to the blade rocking on the lateral ajuster and this cannot be lowered any further I don't expect whichever factory they are now coming from has ever tried using them.

The people running Record in the early days seemed to know what woodworkers needed - just read Planecraft for evidence of that.

John

Re: Irwin Record

Patrick Gibbons, Houston, TX

>I've seen some of the new Irwin chisels and they seem to be lacking in the fit and finish I would have expected from Marples. It may be my imagination. I believe they were still made in England, though.

Re: Irwin Record

John Horobin

>The chisels are still marked made in England (at the moment) but it could be they are just assembled here. Not sure.

John

Re: Irwin Record

Regs

>What an absolute tragedy. I would encourage people not to purchase any Irwin or "Record" products anymore. They obviously aren't interested in quality or tradition anymore.

For my money I'd go LN or Veritas, they at least are comitted to quality and to manufacturing in the western hemisphere.

Re: Irwin Record Joins Stanley in killing ...

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Quality tools.JR

Re: Irwin Record Joins Stanley in killing ...

John Horobin

>I don't know if Rubbermaid have done the same thing to the American Tool side of things? Apparently they got Record without realising it when they bought out American Tools.

John

Re: Irwin Record

kees laan

>hi,

there's just one thing that counts: "shareholdervalue" and every 3 months good news!

American Tool company also bought Nooitgedagt; they are terrible now.

kees

Re: Irwin Record

Craig

>Any idea what killed Record? EEC regulations. Their industrial forge was 10 years old, and new EEC (European Economic Community) pollution regulations disallowed it. Estimate was �12m to ensure that the plant met the regulations - so it had to be closed down - in spite of it being highly profitable. AFAIK Irwin had no interest in closing them down other than essentially being ordered to do so.

The same process killed Disston too.

Craig

Re: Irwin Record

joel

>From people I know who were at the factory they said that the factory was simply worn out.

It wasn't regulartion is was that in 25 years nobody had spent a dime upgrading tooling and machinery or the casting plant.

Also Sheffield itself has changed. The land the factory was on was worth a lot more that the cost of paying redundency to the employees.

Re: Irwin Record & OT rant

Tony Z.

>What price are we willing to pay for quality? I am one of the owners of several small manufacturing plants in Western PA. We have roughly 85 employees, and bat heads everyday with items going south of the border or to the Pacific rim. We all complain about it, but what do we actually do about it? How many of us complain about jobs leaving, yet still purchase those goods that have left this country? How many of us support retail orgainizations that have built their business by going off shore?

Goods we manufacture are roughly 55% automotive based--and we are held to give-backs on price every year. You heard that correct--no price increases, no stable price, but rather price decreases. Factor in the uncertainty of utility costs, employee costs, raw material costs and government burden and its easy to fall into a trap of thinking American heavy industry has the cards stacked against it.

To those of you questioning quality and embracing the notion of older goods being better I'll say this: quality is a function of the right product at the right price doing the job the product was purchased for delivered on time. Yes many of the older tools were better made and many older tools were junk. The same thing holds true today, with quality being in the eye of the tool holder. There are quality manufacturers in the Pacific rim, and there are trash makers in the U.S. Remember how many years ago that Japan was thought of in the same manner we think of Chinese manufacturing today, and look at how we view Japan today. Why the change? Japan was forced to innovate in order to survive.

Record made a conscious effort to not reinvest in their infrastructure. Because of that we see the net effect of only the name surviving, and used as a label for someone else's cheaper product. Manufacturing is like a living organism--it can certainly live a while without being fed, but sooner or later it will die. When Record was making profits, where did those profits go?

For now, just to name a few, companies such as Lee-Valley and L-N need a pat on the shoulder. They are prospering through innovation--even though the innovation is in a mature business. I particularly like Lee-Valley noting where many of their products are manufactured!

Re: Irwin Record

John Horobin

>I think if they had not been taken over by American Tool and then in particular Newell Rubbermaid they would still have been producing in Sheffield. Newell Rubbermaid just seem interested in producing large volumes of stuff made as cheaply as possible. The closure of the foundry was not the real problem as in years past both Stanley and Record have had casting done elsewhere in the UK and this could have continued.

The Chinese made stuff is poor from what I have seen so far.

John