A sad day

Re: Changes - Very good point

CarlosJD

I've read through this blog and believe that the point is being missed. IT IS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. The reason you get a unknowing sales person is because, who that has the knowledge wants to work for minimum wage? Lie Nielsen and Lee Valley both make wonderful products and I happen to own some of both, and yes I paid a premium for them. I also own a Woodriver No. 5 (I believe made in Taiwan) and get very good performance from it and at half the cost of LN and LV. As for Harbor Freight, well I own plenty of clamps from them (so does Michael Fortune) and a brad and pin nailer. They all work fine. (and all made overseas.) I was recently shopping for a new Norton grind wheel and found "4" different prices from "4" different web sites for the same wheel. Go figure . . .

So really all there is for us consumer/prosumers to do is figure out what we want and who we want to give our money to and get back to making saw dust.

One trouble with this line of reasoning...

John in NM

It assumes that all consumers are the same. Often time, those who gripe about Harbor Freight rarely shop there. Usually, if I'm going to go cheap, I buy used rather than new import. Only when there is no practical alternative do I generally buy a new import tool - benchtop mortiser for example.

Re: A sad day

david weaver

I noticed also that a lot of their tools hung tight for a while. They had a yamamoto blue cutting steel smoother that was $231 for a very long time. I actually bought one several years ago.

It was out of the catalog, but now it's back. (I used to, btw, worry that if I didn't order something once in a while, I'd stopping getting a catalog. It's been years now, but I still get the catalog). Anyway, it's back at a little over $360, the exchange seems to have caught up all at once. The white steel smoother that they had that looks like fujihisa or something went from 165 to 265.

All of that is expected, it's pretty much what happens when you can get 75 yen for a dollar when you used to be able to get 120.

But there are some things they sell that other people sell that you just sort of wonder....like the kitayama stone that imanishi makes. Lots of places have it between $60 and $70. In the new JWW catalog, it's $108

They do have all manner of little marking and carving knives in one place, though, I wonder if WC will keep those things.

It's interesting that the LN planes were excluded from the catalog, but they're still on their website. Presume in the future, maybe (since the retail store is closing) this stuff will go in the WC catalog? We'll see. A lot of the little nifty stuff, like the small carving knives and tools will almost certainly go the way of the dodo bird though. There's no way you can put that stuff at a location in middle america and expect someone will buy it off the shelf.

I remember seeing the common kumagoro branded japanese chisels show up at rockler, and the few people who did say anything about them at the counter couldn't stop remarking how expensive they were at $30-$40 each.

Re: LV - LN

david weaver

>>slow replenishing orders<<

Same issue WC had, and the same thing Clarence told me when I ordered a #7 through FTJ, they do it when they want to do it.

That's another tragedy btw (FTJ)..I haven't seen a newsletter tool sale in a long time. The brown auction looks to have a good volume of stuff in it, but that's for guys with more money than me. I got some spectacular very vintage stuff at the newsletter tool sales.

Re: LV - LN

Jim in River Oaks, Ont.

It's not an accident when they are slow, they have done so to their own in the past, we had a Canadian rep for LN and there was a parting of the ways with LN, just before they disolved their partnersip it was well known that any orders we placed through him might take longer than usual, not his doing.... not pleasant.

Take care,

Jim

"A lot of the little nifty stuff"

Bruce, a MN Galoot

is just what our local WC store has most of. There are two solid rows of carving tools and other nifty stuff whose function I can only guess at. It seems to be the one thing that most of the staff seem to know most about. Who'da thunk it?

Re: "A lot of the little nifty stuff"

James Watriss

Doesn't surprise me. When I was going to NBSS, and working at Rockler, I still shopped at WC for the niche tools, because that's where they were. Eventually the manager got to know me, and hired me after I quit working at Rockler.

Re: LN

TomD

I remember visiting the place when it was all in the garage. It was like a pinball arcade, except with machine tools along the walls. They looked like they knew what they were doing, but it was not a huge modern factory with unlimited capacity. I guess they have moved on, but they have also added a lot of complexity to their offering. They do pretty well. Places are what they are. They could be completely different, but then they might be completely different.

Re: Product Knowledge

TomD

I've done that at LV also, though one has to be very careful, I have a better relationship with the staff than any walkers. Sometimes one can help though. Really product knowledge is a lot to ask. We are long past the point when the staff would be expected to have better knowledge than many of the clients, given the diversity of products. And they have their own professional roles to play. I think the fact they have classrooms is good, and some of the staff are well up to giving seminars.

Re: A sad day

wilbur

FWIW, I think the major factor in this change is the decision of the Damsens to retire. I doubt that they would have had any problems continuing their business if they wanted to. The items in the Japan Woodworker catalog continued to be updated over time, and it is still one of the major sources, if not the major source, for Japanese tools in the U.S.

Assuming that the decision for the Damsens to retire was a given (and who can fault them for being able to do that), there are basically three options. Close down operations entirely; sell the entire operation, including the retail store; or sell the mail order operation and close the retail store. (I doubt that selling the retail store and closing the mail order part of the business would be a viable option.)

Given my one visit to Japan Woodworker's store, there was clearly enough effort put into their store and the number of people working there for me to think that if they had found a suitable person to take over the retail store operation, they would have done so. Which leaves shutting down entirely, or finding a buyer for their mail order business. And although I would have rather not seen this go to Woodcraft, mainly because I think this should be an independent entity, it's still better than losing Japan Woodworker entirely.