Veritas prices inching up towards LN pricing?

[dave andrews]

I have been considering a few planes and noticed another $5-10 jump in prices. Just an FYI and a slight closing of the price gap with the lie-nielsen options.

[David Weaver]

Well, this thread being what it is (the title will attract a lot of people, LN fans included), it's a good place to ask this question:

Does anyone know what the hardness of the O1 tool parts from Lie Nielsen is? Chisels, too?

Are they near the top of the range in hardness like the hock stuff, or are they a little softer than their A2 stuff like Lee Valley does?

[Rob Lee]

I have been considering a few planes and noticed another $5-10 jump in prices. Just an FYI and a slight closing of the price gap with the lie-nielsen options.

Hi Dave -

It's a perspective thing... it's actually the US dollar that's inching down...

Veritas plane prices actually went down this year in Canada (country of origin).

Cheers -

Rob

[george wilson]

LN plane blades of 01 were advertised as being either 60 or 62 rockwell C. I've forgotten which. According to my steel books,60 is pushing it for the 01 to retain a good edge. I made a knife blade of 01 that bore that figure out for me,too. I had to draw it softer after carrying it for months and trying it out. I am aware that some blade makers advocate harder. I prefer the data from the tool steel manufacturer's recommendations,myself.

Back in the 70's,01 was what I used for my tools. I didn't have more sophisticated heat treating equipment back then.

[David Weaver]

It's the crazy loony!

You're entitled to make a living, and so are your employees. The inflation adjusted prices of LN and LV tools over the last umpteen years probably would look awfully good to those of us who buy tools.

I haven't followed LV's tools more than four years, but I have a 1993 FWW that someone loaned me, and I think the LN 60 1/2 was $135 delivered in it.

CPI-U says 135*218.01/144.4=$203.82 would be an equivalent price today on a real basis.

I'd say you guys manufacturing tools are pretty good at keeping the customer in mind when balancing your pricing decisions against the increase in cost of employees and their benefits, materials, etc.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt

[David Weaver]

LN plane blades of 01 were advertised as being either 60 or 62 rockwell C. I've forgotten which. According to my steel books,60 is pushing it for the 01 to retain a good edge. I made a knife blade of 01 that bore that figure out for me,too. I had to draw it softer after carrying it for months and trying it out. I am aware that some blade makers advocate harder. I prefer the data from the tool steel manufacturer's recommendations,myself.

Back in the 70's,01 was what I used for my tools. I didn't have more sophisticated heat treating equipment back then.

Well, the 2010s will probably be my 70s then. I have left a few things untempered, but only plane irons that will see agreeable wood that's not too hard or abrasive.

I kind of prefer the hard 01 in the 60-62 range to the softer tool steel that's in stock plane irons from the golden days of hand tools, but probably do prefer them because most of the stones now will cut anything that resembles tool steel pretty easily, and diamonds will cut anything that I've seen as if it's not that hard.

If I had a knife made of O1, I'd probably not push it to that level of hardness, though - I definitely see your point of view there. Using it on anything other than fruit without a blunt angle could result in crying.

Thanks for recalling what you've seen on the LN hardness. I'm not in the market for anything right now, but should I ever be, I would keep hopping and skipping down the road if they're not harder than cheaper vintage chisels.

[Phillip Ngan]

I received my Sept 2010 Canadian LV catalog in the mail yesterday, and leafed through it page by page, comparing prices in the 2009 catalog. It seems that 90% of the items have gone down in price, only by a small amount, e.g. something that was $199 is now $195. This applies to products manufactured by LV as well as those of other manufacturers.

Well done LV, I've never seen prices go down before. And also, recently many people have reported checks in the mail for refunds on price drops.

[dave andrews]

Hi Dave -

It's a perspective thing... it's actually the US dollar that's inching down...

Veritas plane prices actually went down this year in Canada (country of origin).

Cheers -

Rob

Seems better than fair to have prices going down in Canada. Quite amazing actually. I will take up the issue with our policy makers down here. Then I will get a few more planes. david thanks for pointing out the large inflation adjusted decrease in pricing. Having not owned any plane for more than a year this is all news to me. cheers -dave

[David Weaver]

It does help when we make the market bigger for LN and LV by purchasing, I'm sure. Four the better part of three years, I sure did my part keeping their unit totals up.

It's not always black and white, because there may be some element of increase volume that allows them to get a per-unit cost down, but at the same time, LN at least is dealing with much higher employee benefit costs, I'm sure. I don't know what's going on in Canada in terms of what the employer pays for health care, but if there is anything employee benefits attached to asset performance, that's going up, too.

Not trying to be a fly in the ointment, just trying to encourage the sort of behavior that I like as a consumer (that being that LN and LV and others have kept us in mind in keeping prices reasonable and not trying to sneak in huge increases under the guise of increased energy costs, etc like a lot of businesses have done).

[Rob Lee]

Hi David -

You make a number of good observations...

For our part, we've been very focussed on internal efficiencies, and investment in improving processes. Capital investment lets us reduce both cycle and set-up times; allowing us to make more product with the same staff. Optimising production planning helps too...

Our staff recognise that increased efficiency means a secure future. Our goal is always to make more product in North America, and employ more people. Kind of a "motherhood" statement... but true.

Cheers -

Rob

[paul cottingham]

Hi Dave -

It's a perspective thing... it's actually the US dollar that's inching down...

Veritas plane prices actually went down this year in Canada (country of origin).

Cheers -

Rob

I was going to make the same observation.

[Joel Goodman]

Rob is right -- Canadian $ is almost at parity with US $ -- if my memory serves at one point it was below 80 cents US.

[Jacob Mac]

In all fairness, LV is, IMO, on the same level as LN in quality and customer service. And they still offer great value for the prices they charge. Their increase won't stop me from ordering their planes.

Plus, as has been noted, rising costs in light of our anemic dollar should be expected.

[David Weaver]

Plus, as has been noted, rising costs in light of our anemic dollar should be expected.

It's putting a major damper on my purchase of japanese tools, too (the dollar falling vs. the yen, that is).

[Tim Put]

Rob is right -- Canadian $ is almost at parity with US $ -- if my memory serves at one point it was below 80 cents US.

Quite recently, yes.
8.5 years ago it was below 63 US cents!

[brian c miller]

8.5 year ago would be right around 20 for me, I was at an engineering college in way upstate NY and on the weekends we'd drive the 2 hours to Montreal and nearly DOUBLE our spending power... :D

Somedays I miss the 'north country' a little bit, just not so much the weather.

[James Scheffler]

8.5 year ago would be right around 20 for me, I was at an engineering college in way upstate NY and on the weekends we'd drive the 2 hours to Montreal and nearly DOUBLE our spending power... :D

Somedays I miss the 'north country' a little bit, just not so much the weather.

Clarkson? I was there 23 years ago. The low Canadian dollar was awfully nice. I think it was around 75 cents to the dollar at that time.

Jim

[Dave Anderson NH]

Years ago when going up over the border my Canadian friends used to complain bitterly about their "discount dollar" when they made trips to our side of the line.