New saw vise at TFWW *LINK*

Re: New saw vise at TFWW

Chris Friesen

>I'm in the Canadian prairies. Around here there are no tools at local flea markets. None, zip, zilch, nada, diddly squat.

Most ebay auctions won't ship to Canada, and if they do the shipping is insane.

On the other hand, I have a Lee Valley store less than 10 minutes away, which makes it very tempting for things that they carry. TFFW still has shipping, but at least its reasonable.

Re: New saw vise at TFWW

wilbur

>"Why would anyone pay this kind of money for something like this when good old saw vises are so common and cheap?....Take $10 go to your local flea market and buy an old saw vise that will work just as well , or better!,as this one and on the way home buy your lunch with the change"

Why would anyone pay this kind of money? Because as far as I can tell, the $10 flea market specials that work just as well that you write about don't exist, much less a saw vise that works that still allows you to buy lunch with the change.

If they did, Todd, you would be making a killing selling used saw vises for $30. And I have to believe that you are too good a businessman to pass up on an opportunity to sell something at more than a 200% markup. That's the sort of ROI that anyone would be happy to have.

Re: New saw vise at TFWW

Raney

>Boy Todd - I never would have guessed you'd feel this way about a newly introduced tool - lol.

Todd - it's exceedingly easy for a guy to find the deals you mention, I suppose, if the guy makes his living going to fleas and using ebay; unfortunately, as I think a couple (dozen) people have mentioned to you in the past, many of us have professional, family, and personal lives that make such a trip an idiotic use of resources unless they just happen to enjoy such hunts and are willing to spend time and money on them.

In the half-dozen or so flea market trips I HAVE made in the past five years, I've found a grand total of ONE saw vise. It was overpriced ($45 IIRC) and only marginally functional. So my top-of-my-head calculation is that I'd likely spend perhaps 20 hours in travel to (hopefully) find this vise you say is so easy to locate.

Add to that the cost of gas, and the fact that in the past year the amount of 'free time' I manage to eke out during daylight hours over the course of an entire year is substantially less than 20 hours (and I do not exaggerate here) and you have a situation that is, unbelievable as it may be, DIFFERENT than yours. I secretly suspect others may have different situations as well.

And as for ebay, I am not even remotely fond of it. I've had more than a couple of poor experiences with it. Nonetheless, I can almost certainly buy a vise from there (though for at least $30-40 once you factor shipping) IF I know exactly what I'm looking for, and IF I can tell from the pictures that the one I'm buying is perectly functional (and in my experience, this is hardly a given for saw vises).

Or I could spend five minutes, and pay $100 plus shipping for a new vise that I'm guaranteed to be satisfied with - with a money back guarantee and 1st class support behind it.

For me, it's a no brainer. Please notice, though, that I told you why I would do it this way without making the assumption that because it makes sense for me, it should make sense for you... because I assume it wouldn't necessarily be the best strategy for a guy who is basically a full-time pro flea market and ebay scourer.

Your advice on these threads would be welcome and helpful if you offered it as the alternative route for those inclined to trade time and effort in exchange for lower cost. But you don't do that. Instead, you inevitably start with a marginally veiled insinuation that other people are dumb for not doing things the way you do. Why on earth anyone in their right mind would be incapable of understanding that there are other lifestyles on the planet than their own is completely beyond me. Even a slowhead like me understands that there are more than one set of priorities available to humans, which means what makes sense for me may not be even close to a good idea for them.

Dido

Wayne

>How many times have each of us purchased a cheep tool and went to use it to find out it really doesn't work right. I made a wooden saw vise and it works so so. Now I enjoyed making the vise but I then made my two sons and I each a tenon saw and it was kind of hard to file the teeth because of the vibration. I would have gladly paid the price for a nice vise all the ones that don't look like junk and were much more that the asking price of this one.

MTCW

Wayne

Re: Todd's contributions

Pam Niedermayer, Austin, TX

>Wilbur, I agree with everything you said except the last paragraph, Todd's contributions to this board are always useful and often funny.

Pam

Re: Todd's contributions

Pam Niedermayer, Austin, TX

>Should have said "Raney," not "Wilbur," apparently lost track of where I was. :)

Pam

I guess I don't get it eiher...

Alan DuBoff

>Raney,

While you make a good argument for folks having professional and family lives, you can buy old saw vises on ebay for $10-$20 all day long. Watch for a bit and you can find one close enough to drive to most likely.

I think if you can justify spending $120 for a saw vise and that it is costing you less in the long run, more power to 'ya.

I can't imagine not having a saw vise, I wonder how people can go so long in using saws without having one, even if they make one.

Yes, you can make one out of a couple bucks worth of wood, that would probably take all of a couple hours total. That might be a good solution for many...

Cheers,

Alan (with enough vintage vises that I don't need one from TFWW)

Pam, I agree with you...

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>'Todd's contributions to this board are always useful and often funny.' I always look for his responses on this and other boards as I know it is the first and last word on the subject.

His responses can be sardonic and he has slapped me around before, but I respect his experience and envy his ability to find good rust.

I for one use wooden saw chops, so I don't have a dog in this fight.

Stephen

I think you fail to see the big picture...

Alan DuBoff

>Why would Todd spend time to make a few bucks on a saw vise, when he can make better money on a hand plane, for instance.

What Todd was tell you is that you can buy inexpensive vises, and they are so inexpensive that in many cases Todd doesn't want to waste his time as there isn't very much money in it, *IMO* (I don't know for fact, just speculating). At the end of the day, Todd needs to live also just like all the other folks, some who don't have time to go to flea markets.

If the price on the TFWW vise seems of good value to you, you should consider it. It certainly looks like a well made vise. This shouldn't distract the fact that vintage vises are available at a fraction of the price, and are available on the used market.

I don't think Todd meant any harm in suggesting you can get a vintage vise for a fraction, I pointed that out myself. In fact, a Wentworth similar to the style copied by TFWW was on ebay yesterday with a buy-it-now of $12.99. Even with the $20 shipping, that's still about 25% of the TFWW vise for me to my door.

E.C.Stearns, Wentworth, Disston, and others, all available on the used market.

Re: I guess I don't get it eiher...

Raney

>Alan,

I have two saw vises - one wooden one made to a full 30-inches wide to sharpen handsaws. The problem with this one, for me, is that it really occupies a good bit of space - which is a very serious shortage for me. I probably spent three or four hours and $10 in scrap wood on it. It's a more than reasonable alternative for someone inclined to make one - it's just inconvenient for me.

My other vise is a simonds, I believe, which was a gift from a friend who does a lot of flea market traveling. It's a fiar vise, but there are aspects of it I would be very happy to have improvements in. First, it's about 11-1/2" long I believe - just a bit too short to handle my carcass and tenon saws in one pass. Second, the pivoting arm is not very stable. Third, it won't fit clamp to my bench directly as it's too thick, so it's mounted to a board that then sits in my tail vise. It's not ideal, as there really is a good deal of 'play' in the system as a whole. I can think of any number of fixes to this, and certainly could do them myself, but the truth is that there are other things I think are better uses of my time.

So let's say that there's probably somewhere in the range of $30, and 3 hours in my current unsatisfactory vise setup... as I said, I didn't pay for the git, but that would represent a fair estimate of the resources involved, I think. I figure I could probably file (tune) the jaws,and with some metal work probably do a fair job correcting the other issues in, let's say, another 3 or 4 hours. At that point, there's somewhere around 7 hours and $30 involved in a good usable vise for my shop. The time I spent is extremely precious to me, and I can tell you that at this point getting back seven hours for an additional cost of $80 is an absolute no-brainer for me. I want the time back. $10 per hour to do work I dislike is not something I've been happy to do since I was a teenager.

So I think it's fair to say that a new, well-thought-out vise that will work at least as well as anything I'd end up with otherwise (and perhaps better) along with grade-A support and a satisfaction guarantee is a more than viable option for me. Additionally, I think the design appears to be quite solid, and I actually even like the looks a good bit.

As fpr Pam and Stephen's defense of Todd - please read what I wrote again. I agree that Todd brings a very valid perspective to the discussion. But personally, I get tired of the broken record "I don't understand why anyone would be so dense as to ____ when even a slowhead like me can find a ____ in five minuted for a mere $___" commentary every time someone introduces a new product of some sort. My point is that there are very valid reasons why someone else might do just that - and I frequently am that someone. The "A saw vise costs a mere $5" is a red herring at best in the experience of anyone who doesn't have 10 or more hours per week to devote to searching flea markets, estate sales, etc - and ebay is a crapshoot much of the time.

Question for Joel

Marv

>Joel,

Have you attempted to test the stability of the vise with filing a large tooth regular rip saw to see if the vise flexes and vibrates out at the ends of the jaws? Filing smaller tooth backsaws probably works fine, but those big saws can be a bugger, especially when doing some major reshaping.

If you were to grab both ends of the jaws on your new vise and try to twist or rotate it, do you get any movement?

Thanks,

Marv

Re: I guess I don't get it eiher...

Alan DuBoff

>Raney,

What you say makes sense, but I have never spent 3 or 4 hours to clean up a vise, and I have 4 of them.

I'm not trying to defend Todd, just saying that he has a point, and it was a point that I also made, $120 is not cheap for a vise, especially when it's a vintage design. That's just my take. I'm sure I wouldn't mind having one, probably operates well, in fact I would be surprised if it didn't.

It is like most things in life, we decide what makes sense for each of us, that is the case with all tools.

It is good to see a vise coming out, just as it is to see new saws being made. The more choices the better. Joel has brought another option to folks wanting to file handsaws.

I think it would be possible to design a modern vise, which departs from the traditional way of thinking, that would be a better mouse trap. For that I think $100 would be a reasonable price. For that matter, Joel's $120 is better than the ECE that used to be available for $160. I wouldn't call that a magnitude better though, just better.

Considering that most folks don't even spend the time to sharpen their saws, I wonder how many will buy Joel's vise for $120 and not even use it but a time or two and be done with it...:-/

Re: I guess I don't get it eiher...

Raney

>Well, the 3 or 4 hour estimate was for fabricating a mounting system that either bypasses or reinforces the pivot joint on mine. And for what it's worth, I really do think Todd's point is a good one. Ten years ago I would have gone the fixit route myself - but that was before marriage and a home where there are more family members in diapers than not.

It's not the message I have any issue with at all - it's the delivery. The idea that people are foolish for NOT taking Todd's route is short-sighted in my opinion, and about once every forty times I see it posted, it grates on me a little more than my 'post' finger can handle.

Re: I guess I don't get it eiher...

Pam Niedermayer, Austin, TX

>Actually, both sides of this generic issue are broken records, so much so that I almost never bother to argue one side or the other any more.

Pam

Location, location, location

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>I'm a moderately frequent garage sale attendee, and, although this area has a pretty decent crop of a lot of tools, I've seen MAYBE two saw vises in my travels over 20 years, though I remember just one (I bought it). Todd lives where they're thicker on the ground, and some of this community live where my tool choices would be nirvana; and, as Raney points out, there's a definite time investment to rust hunting.

Joel's offering an alternative; this isn't a bad thing.

Re: Nice improvement!

Todd Hughes

>I bought one last year at a large tool show for $90 and was complete with the filing guides. Sat all morning at the show and don't think anyone showed any interest in it.Sold it for a large profet on the eBay

....Even though I knew it would do well was hard to bring myself to pay the $90 since in the past don't think I ever paid more then $25 for one.

If new made copies of these cheaper non angled saw vises cost $100+ if somebody made a knock off of one of these Disston d3 you probaby would have to pay $2,000 !

Todd

Re: Question for Joel

joel

>I haven't tried major reshaping as I don't have a saw that needs it. but normal filing works great and I see no reason why it will be a problem. The jaws are both machined and concave from let to right so when you tighten the jaws it closes up tight all over. In general the saw has more clamping pressure than the other vises we tested. Once we got our Wentworth (a bigger number 2 than the #1s on Ebay all the time )

we junked the Disston D3. Now with ours the Wentworth is off the bench too.

Raney's response and moderator instructions

Wiley Horne--So. Calif.

>First, Raney's response:

"I was posting a rationale for not dismissing others' priorities with such derision. I took no 'side' to try to talk anyone into buying new tools - I merely made a case for why it often makes sense for some of us. And I grow weary of the "everyone who doesn't think as I do is stupid" quality that I see at times.

How that equates to the broken record half of a generic debate is a little beyond me."

Second, my Moderator request:

This has been a good subthread, for the reason that the 'make or buy' decision is one that faces every one of us. Up to now, each person's points have been closely argued and pretty much objective. Now it has begun to get personal. So let's let this one rest right here. It's been a good discussion, so let's leave it that way. No further in the personal vein.

Thank you, Wiley

I'll gladly pay the freight.....

Marv

>Joel,

If you have junked your 3D vise and still have it, it will fit in a large USPS Flat Rate box for only $14. I'll gladly pay the freight. I have fixed that cam problem on a number of 3D vises.

All the vises I have examined, I found that only the front jaw is bowed a little. The back jaw is straight. The back jaw is stationary and the front jaw does the opening and closing and clamping, hence less bending of the jaws is required.

The reason I asked you if you can make your vise move by grasping the two ends of the jaws and twisting is because after I made the base I show in the picture in an earlier post, I can still get a little movement by applying some muscle to the end of the jaws I still get a small amount of movement, but only with the castings, not the base I made. With a sheetmetal design, I'm curious if the metal flexes. If it does flex, there is a possibility that there will be vibration when filing a big tooth ripper. However, that is not reason enough for people to not buy your vise. Vibration and screeching is pretty much accepted as part of the filing process on a big saw, even with the best of vises. But wouldn't it be great to be able to advertise your vise as having zero vibration no matter what kind of handsaw is filed? For those who presently file their own saws and are doing it on a cheap lightweight vise, will look very seriously at your new vise. "Our work is only as good as our tools." That's a quote from someone other than me.

Thanks,

Marv

Re: I'll gladly pay the freight.....

joel

>Marv,

I'll of two minds on the 3D. We certainly haven't used it for over a year and I can't think of any reason why I would. but as a collector I am loath to sell anything and sorry - If I did I would sell it for the crazy money you get on Ebay.

As for the jaws they are 1/4" thick machined steel at an angle. It's by far the most solid saw vise with the least vibration I and my collegues have ever used. But until we get actual production from actual tooling we won't know how much better the production is that what we are using now. NOW we are very happy but the tool was hand made and production specs will be tighter and we suspect we will be happier still.

Re: sheet steel

Chris Scholz

>Sheet vs. plate, reminds me of Kirchhoff's Plate Theory...Aren't there "thin plate" and "thick plate" approximations, too?

Take it for face value...what will market bear?

Alan DuBoff

>Raney wrote:

"It's not the message I have any issue with at all - it's the delivery. The idea that people are foolish for NOT taking Todd's route is short-sighted in my opinion, and about once every forty times I see it posted, it grates on me a little more than my 'post' finger can handle."

I don't think that was Todd's intention, but yes, that is the way he comes of (sounds) some of the time. In that regard, just don't take Todd's message as being personal, I don't think it is. Remember that Todd is certainly entitled to his own opinion just like the rest of us. I have grown to like Todd's witty and "back to the basics" mentality. And because Todd offers used tools to folks, is not a bad thing. I have bought stuff from Todd in the past, he is accurate with his descriptions and ships fast. Todd is not a bad person to buy used tools from, IMO.

It doesn't take much to secure a saw for sharpening, in some of the LN videos online, they use a small type box with a hinge on it, that works well, and surely wouldn't take long to build. For that matter, one can use a couple pieces of wood pinched on both sides of the blade in most any common bench vise, without the hinge.

For the less venturous, Joel's vise does make a good alternative to building one. My fear is that we get people into the mode of automatically buying a saw vise, even if they don't use it. As it is, few folks sharpen their own saws, or sharpen them enough. People always seem neurotic about buying a complete set of tools, or to ensure they have the latest gizmo, maybe it will fertilize the used market with some of Joel's vises...

The real deciding point, how much will people pay for a slightly used TFWW vise on ebay when they are available? If you were to see one at a garage sale, would you pay $120 for it and be happy? If you saw one for $60 would you buy it? I'm not sure I would pay $60 for one, maybe someone else would. I wonder what it would take to get people to buy one at a garage sale? As it is, even though most folks have saws it seems more common to pass up on saw vises when they see them anyway...sometimes the attitude is, "ah, I have one or two already...that I'm not using...", but other times it's, "I don't know how to use it and not sure I want to invest the time, I think I'll just send my saw out to be sharpened for me...". Not trying to generalize here, but it is more common for people to fear saw sharpening over any other form of edge tool sharpening, IMO.

Therein lies a catch, this vise will not stop people from sending their saws out to be sharpened, IMO, there will still be people that do not take the time to learn the skill out of fear, either fear that it is too difficult for them to accomplish or that they will destroy their tool (the later being the more common, IMO).

That said, as I have trying to expound in this thread, that having a new vise available is not a bad thing, and that option will work well for at least some folks. If it will get people to start sharpening their saws, more power to the new vise. If it will get people to think about sharpening their saws when they pull them out to use them (as they would a chisel or plane iron), more power to them. If it turns into a tool that folks buy and learn to leave in the corning of their shop because the saw seems like it's cutting ok, the woodworking community is back to where they were before the TFWW vise came about...The other metric that will be good to watch is how this new vise effects the prices of vintage vises and/or if they start going up from what they sell for today. That is something none of us know for certain, yet.

Selling tools and saw vises

Todd Hughes

>"Why would anyone pay this kind of money? Because as far as I can tell, the $10 flea market specials that work just as well that you write about don't exist, much less a saw vise that works that still allows you to buy lunch with the change.

If they did, Todd, you would be making a killing selling used saw vises for $30. And I have to believe that you are too good a businessman to pass up on an opportunity to sell something at more than a 200% markup. That's the sort of ROI that anyone would be happy to have."

If you go to Ebay and do a completed auction search for Saw vises you will see from a couple of complted auctions of this type of saw vise that they seem to sell for between $12 and $15....now I'm not talking other types of saw vises like the Disston 3d but this type, so lets not compare apples and oranges, OK ....Personaly my stuff most times seem to sell toward the top end and not bragging but I think I could get $20-$25 for a vise like this if talked up good and presented well.

From my experance I could buy one for around $5 or more likely just toss it in my pile at the auction and get it for nothing because I would be very surprised if it would raise the price of my lot. Will point out here what may be obvious to some but maybe not to all....If these things are selling for $12-$15 on the ebay more then likely the sellers are paying less for them don't you think? I imagine they bought them like I would have and paid the same.

....Even if I got one for nothing and it sold for $20 it would not be something I would want to sell. People that don't sell tools , esp. on the Ebay,don't really know the business and what it entails so often have a hard time understanding it so they think if you buy something for $5 and sell it for $20 you are doing great....WELL..

...Several things to think about with these saw vises...First I like to sell clean tools and I think these saw vises are not really that easy to clean up..Won't take that long but on something I am only going to make $15-$20 on I don't want to have more then a few minutes in cleaning it. More important is the size. Unless I am going to make a very good profit on it I really try to only sell items that fit in those free US priority mail boxes. An item like this would require me to find a box to ship it...again more time and trouble that you don't want to have to do on a small profit item...Same with having to pack something like this really carefully so it doesn't get broke.

....Another thing to realise is that there is absolutly no trouble to find things to sell on ebay...my trouble is I buy to much and then don't get around to selling it! I could easly sell 3 times what I do now...and these items are easier to sell / ship and /or have a higher profet margine then a saw vise like this.

... Last night I sold a small plumb ball pein hammer for $44 [paid $2], Steampunk Goggle glasses for $26 [paid $4] and oyster hammer for $20 [paid $1]....Things like this clean up fast or don't need it at all, fit in a standard box and can be wrapped in newspaper and boxed up in about 3 min.....and I'm going to fool with a $20 saw vise and all the trouble it would entail?....don't think so.

Do you think the people selling these new ones are only making $15-$20 profit on them?....I would be very surprised, yet I get told that I should be happy to make that, eh?....Personaly I hope they get them from the factory for $5 and Im glad for them that some people apparently are ready to pay $100+ for the things,

I understand why this design was chosen to copy because it is probably much easier [and cheaper] to make then other designs such as thouse that adjust to angle the saw or have leather cushioned jaws.I think tradtionaly this design was never all that popular and probably most got sold because of thier being cheaper then better vises. Even today all it takes is to look at completed ebay auctions and you will see that most saw vise buyers today prefer these other types to the one this new vise copies. But still it is a little like LN having decided to make copies of the Stanley Handyman line of planes instead of the Bedrocks

Personaly I hope they sell a bunch of the Saw Vises, really would be to my advantage too. While I don't sell this type of vise now if the knock off becomes popular it would be sure to raise the price of the originals too...I might even try an old saw vise and mention in the auction how new copies of being sold in excess of $100 just to see....Is like with the Stanley 750 chisels, I used to not be able to give those things away and then LN started to copy them and ...BANG!...the Originals went to the roof!......Todd

I'll wait until the production model

Marv

>Joel,

You didn't exactly answer my question about the flexing of your vise. It's really a moot point with the vise you have, so I'll ask you again when you have a production model in your hands.

Marv

Re: I'll wait until the production model

Joel

>Marv,

oh yeah you are right - wait for actual production - I think you will be very pleased.