New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Todd Stock

>Their Auriou rasp selection was nice as well. Prices looked to be about right.

Did I miss LV, or did they miss the show?

Also had an interesting discussion with the L-N folks, the summary of which was that Tom designed the 7-1/2 for spar making, hence the mouth. Interesting.

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>LV was in conflict with another location IIRC. I posted to Rob Lee and wondered if they would make the No VA show and his response was not this year. Perhaps we can prevail on him to opt in for next year. If the line at the L-N booth is any indication his attendance would be rewarded.

Sorry to have missed you there. Did you come Sat?

With the crowds I may not have found you anyway:-(

JR

$109 for a back saw?

Michael R

>Still gives me the willies. I paid around $10 - $30 each for mine at flea markets and antique shops. Nothing special, just nice saws with comfortable handles. Most of them have brass backs.

When the Lie-Nielsen saws first came out, I took one of my old saws to Woodcraft to see if the new ones were all that good. Everyone who tried my old saw thought it cut better than the fresh out of the box L-N.

Bear in mind that if you use the saw, it's got to be sharpened, and how a saw is sharpened determines its performance more than anything else. It makes more sense to me to buy a decent old saw and spend some money on a couple of XX slim taper files and some time practicing sharpening.

Those $100 saws aren't much use if you can't get a decent sharpening job. If you use them much, they'll want frequent touchup.

I understand pride of ownership, and I can't deny the quality of the tools in question. Call me cheap or call me frugal, but I'd rather spend my hard-earned money somewhere else.

By the way, machine sharpening is OK for re-toothing a saw, but the services I've tried have done a truly lousy job of sharpening. Like a chisel or a plane, it's better to keep them touched up than to use them until they are really dull and then do a major sharpening.

Michael R

Re: $109 for a back saw?

Todd Stock

>I think Cosman has the flick - he'd rather build furniture than go rust hunting. For others, they live to dig through barrels and boxes to save a few bucks. To each his own.

As for me, the additional hundred fifty bucks for a ready to roll 14" rip back saw is an hour or less of my time, depending on which contract we're talking about. When I was a time millionaire (read: unemployed student), I had the time, but not the dough. Now I have far less time, and just a bit more money.

Also - my saws never start cutting well until I'm through the first dozen sets of dovetails or whatever. A fresh out-of-the-box saw always has burrs, etc. that smooth out after a few days.

Re: $109 for a back saw?

Michael R

>I understand your point of view. I'm self employed and get a pretty high hourly rate. I used to work virtually all the time, 80 to 90 hours a week. Whoever said hard work never killed anyone was wrong: it ended up nearly killing me. I still work hard, but I play more now.

There are plenty of decent saws selling now on Ebay in the $10 to $30 range. I don't spend much time looking for old tools, but I enjoy going to the occasional antique store or flea market as recreation. Sometimes I find tools, sometimes other treasures, like a $4000 piece of Japanese cloisonne for $400, or a $6000 18th century violin for $300, (both of which I sold to dealers). I usually come up empty, but to me it's good fun. I understand if it's no fun for you.

If you think a saw that comes out of the box with burrs on it cuts well after substantial use, I submit for your consideration that you might never have used a well tuned saw. In my experience, they cut the best immdediately after sharpening and only get worse with time and use. It's hard to find a decent saw sharpener, so it pays to learn how to do it yourself. If time is important, you can sharpen a saw yourself in less time than it takes to drop a saw off and pick it up.

I understand why some people fork out that kind of money. I just don't agree with it for reasons already mentioned. You pays your money and you takes your choice....

Michael R

Re: $109 for a back saw?

Todd Stock

>I think it's pretty academic for most stuff - a $4 Zona saw and just a bit of skill will handle most dovetailing and even some light tenoning.

Four hours to find/tune an old Disston, $120 for an Adria or LN, or even more bucks for a handmade dozuki are most beneficial to the novice that does not yet have the feedback loop in place to understand what a blade is trying to tell them.

Of course, it does take some experience to notice the difference in how the saw is cutting from hour to hour, and that comes with time.

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Skip in Falls Church

>Their Auriou rasp selection was nice as well. Prices looked to be about right. - Todd

The prices looked right enough for me to pick one up. Although I wish the price would have looked just a little more right than it did.

Did I miss LV, or did they miss the show? - Todd

LV wasn't there - RATS!!!!!!!

Skip

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Todd Stock

>I spent so much time at other booths working with a friend of mine on picking up some basic shop equipment that I never got back to TBT.

I did visit LV at Baltimore show and had a good look at things, so no big deal; however, LN and some of the other quiet side vendors were two deep for most of the time I was there, so there was certainly a great deal of hand tool interest.

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

paul womack

>In his area I found the new Pax 1776 open handled back saw.

It's by far their nicest saw. It's also expensive. In fact, all the modern era saws of the same quality (LV, Adria, Pax 1776) carry similar prices. It would appear (assuming no collusion), that this flows from production costs.

BugBear

Re: $109 for a back saw?

paul womack

>It's hard to find a decent saw sharpener, so it pays to learn how to do it yourself. If time is important, you can sharpen a saw yourself in less time than it takes to drop a saw off and pick it up.

You don't leave a guy many options, do ya'?!

BugBear (who sharpens his own saws, but took a goodly while to get good at it)

Just another point of view,,,

Michael R

>Feel free to ignore it. Just depends on how you look at things.

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Michael R

>I'm an old production guy, and I ran a VERY rough estimate of direct production costs. I came up with about $12, figuring a loaded cost of $60 per hour labor with shop overhead, and about $2 for materials. Double that for indirect costs and profit, and you come up with wholesale price of maybe $25, retail $50 or so.

Add some expensive (read time consuming) detailing like touching up the teeth by hand and you might be able to run your direct cost up to $20 in a less efficient shop leading to a retail price in the $80 plus range.

Take production to Southeast Asia and your costs are way less than half.

Freud has a pretty decent brass-backed, taper ground, English made dovetail saw that is selling in the $50 range. I used to know the manufacturer but can't remember it now; it was an old line saw company. I suspect they are being discontinued. If so, it is probaly because the manufacturer is going the way of all the other saw companies - not enough demand to cover the overhead of a large plant combined with all the obstacles to doing business in England.

To sum up, I kind of doubt that the prices flow all that much from production costs. More likely it's marketing / sales cost plus a real healthy profit. Nothing wrong with profit if people see the value for the price, and clearly quite a few do. Others like me don't see as much value, but that's why there are Hyundais and Hummers.

FWIW

Michael R

LN/LV, Etc. Windfall Profits

Todd Stock

>I think you are right on the money with your comments on windfall profits by LN, LV and their European brethren. If these guys would just get past paying their employees a living wage, ditch the benefits, and figure out some way to avoid payroll taxes, EPA, and OSHA compliance costs, etc., then we might see some meaningful cost competition with Anant. Given that we can build a VW in Mexico, why can't we make the LN or LV line there as well?

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Assuming you're correct, $109 for a $12 direct production cost is very, very good. Once you add in all the stuff Todd mentioned, plus insurance and R&D and some money for resellers, you've got a great deal.

Also, LN & LV are bringing us not only redesigned old tools, but some great new tools as well, totally new designs. R&D at that level is very expensive, to say nothing of the machinery to make them.

Pam

Re: Wndfall???????

Michael R

>I think you may have misread my post. I'm all for profit, and all for letting the market rule. Without profits a business can't grow or even exist for long, nor can it generate jobs. I was just commenting on the idea that the seemingly high prices might flow from production costs. It may or may not, but my impression is that it probably doesn't.

No amount of ideology can change basic economics. They are what they are. As long as a company presents a product that people want and that they think represents a good value compared to other products available, it will sell. And as long as the companies costs are low enough to provide a good margin, the company will grow and continue to employ people. There are some employers that take advantage of people, but most find that they have to take pretty good care of people if they want to keep them. That's certainly been my experience when employing people.

Like the companies you mention, I charge what I think the market will bear for what I do. Some people find my services to be a good value. Some don't. Works for me. In a similar manner, I don't find the above mentioned products a good value for me even though a lot of other people do for perfectly good reasons of their own.

If there is a problem with that point of view, I'd be happy to hear about it.

Michael R

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Michael R

>"Assuming you're correct, $109 for a $12 direct production cost is very, very good"

That's true for Proctor and Gamble, maybe, where the product costs very little and the marketing costs a lot.

In contrast, I ran furniture factories for over 20 years. For us a good gross margin was 30% over direct production costs, and a good year's net profit was 5%. Of course in a bad year the company bore the entire burden of any losses. Average retail gross margin in the furniture business is 40% overall. By that formula an item with a direct cost of $12 would retail for around $35, factoring in transportation costs.

I imagine the picture for the companies in question is somewhere in between. I wouldn't be surprised if their structure wasn't a little closer to mine than Proctor& Gambles.

As for the rest, I hope I addressed it in the previous post.

If you have facts that indicate otherwise, I'm always intersted in learning.

Michael R

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I ran a software development company for about 23 years and learned that pricing is voodoo, more dependent on the end user you pick as your niche than any intrinsic cost calculation.

Nevertheless, each stage of product production and sales must be treated differently. Yes, 30% over direct costs is very good for a manufacturer; but that's only a small part of the process. The rest involves getting an end user to buy the product and shipping it to him/her. This tends to be very expensive.

Pam

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Michael R

>"pricing is voodoo, more dependent on the end user you pick as your niche than any intrinsic cost calculation."

You've made my point. I was trying to demonstrate that the pricing on those products probably didn't reflect production costs, but rather what the makers figured they could get. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm also not in their market niche. Nothing wrong with that, either. They are very much nice products.

By the way, that 30% GM covered administration and marketing as well as profit. Shipping on low end furniture averages about 10%. We had no other costs.

M R

Re: Economics and Ideology

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>You stated, No amount of ideology can change basic economics.

I must disagree strongly with that statement. Ideological issues have a profound, pervasive effect on economics, market forces, and the perception, creation, loss and transfer of wealth, at all levels. You might want to study Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, for some basic economic examples.

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Well, yes, but were you selling direct or through retailers? If through retailers, I suspect the asking price was much higher than your wholesale price.

And there's a limit to voodoo niche pricing. At a certain point, to make sure you earn enough to do it all again tomorrow, your price must be very sensitive to cost. This, btw, is not so clear cut in the software business these days, what with online distribution and documentation.

Pam

Re: Economics and Ideology

Todd Stock

>...or 'Atlas Shrugged'

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Michael R

>Pam, I sold to retailers, and as I said earlier, the average retail margin in the furniture business (nationwide)is right at 40%, so with transportation figured in, retail prices run about twice wholesale. Competition keeps those margins within a pretty close range.I had bottom line responsibility for over 20 years, so I know the furniture industry's cost structure pretty well.

Re: New backsaw at the Woodworking Show

Michael R

>Pam, I sold to retailers, and as I said earlier, the average retail margin in the furniture business (nationwide)is right at 40%, so with transportation figured in, retail prices run about twice wholesale. Competition keeps those margins within a pretty close range.I had bottom line responsibility for over 20 years, so I know the furniture industry's cost structure pretty well.

Re: Economics and Ideology

Michael R

>William, I have read both Adam Smiths, and I had read everything Ayn Rand ever wrote before I was 15 years old, which is about the age where her writing loses its appeal. I have lived under different ideologies in Europe. I have also had the highly educational experience of building and operating a couple of medium-sized (60 to 80 employees) manufacturing companies over a period of twenty years, and of being self employed for the past 15 years, so I might be qualified to have some grasp of basic market economics.

What you say is true in the general sense, as are most platitudes, but it misses the point entirely here. I was referring to the current situation under discussion and the current economic structure that we find ourselves in. The point was that no individual's personal ideology is going to have much effect on the general very basic equations of manufacturing and marketing in effect here and now. There's a lot more I could say about your post, but it's not pertinent to this discussion and it's probably even more boring than this quibbling.