Ritter, no mas

[Martin Wasner]

I called to get a price on a Ritter shaper a couple of weeks ago, the salesman left a message when he returned my call, and I didn't get back to him until today. Apparently Ritter closed their doors this week.

Bummer.

Scratch one more builder of American made Equipment. What are we left with now? Northfield, Unique, Castle, ......?

[Jeff Duncan]

They weren't exactly at the top of the food chain in terms of quality machinery which is probably why they went under. Personally there's no American made shapers I'd be interested in, but yes Northfield to my knowledge is still in business and make a very robust shaper.

good luck,
JeffD

[Martin Wasner]

They weren't exactly at the top of the food chain in terms of quality machinery which is probably why they went under.


The tub boring pocket screw machine sucked, basically a pneumatic kreg jig. Door clamps were good. Face frame clamps were good. Their line bores worked really well. Their shapers were supposed to be pretty good.

They made some good stuff I thought.

[Peter Quinn]

The tub boring pocket screw machine sucked, basically a pneumatic kreg jig. Door clamps were good. Face frame clamps were good. Their line bores worked really well. Their shapers were supposed to be pretty good.

They made some good stuff I thought.

I used one of their shapers for a while... they were supposed to be pretty good...but they were not. They were pretty cheap. And I mean that both ways. Best comment I ever heard, totally nailed it, "Best thing you can say about Ritter Shapers is I think you could replace every part on them at the local Ace hardware". They had that "cobbed" together quality that make you wish you were using something else. Sured looked like a big shaper, just didn't act like one. I never used any of their other stuff, I hear line boring was really their strong suit. I hope so, because shaping sure wasn't.

[Bill Orbine]

Gee, that's too bad. I have a Ritter dowel boring machine. They made good boring machines and sanders if not shapers.

[Justin Ludwig]

I bought a used Faceframe and door clamping station in January off auction. Glad I got the replacement parts (clamping feet) before they closed.

I had to rebuild one of the door clamps and Ritter wanted $165 for the kit. After taking it apart, I was able to rebuild it for $15 in parts and fuel to get across county to have to parts milled.

[Martin Wasner]

The auction I got my SAC shaper on, I was bidding on a few things. One of which was a 46 spindle Ritter line bore. It needed work. It was missing all the drill bits, which isn't a big deal, those aren't Ritter specific. One of the drive motors was missing, which might have been specific, or at least difficult to source elsewhere. But I figured I'd just go through the whole thing. Pull the other motor and have it serviced, pull the gear boxes and service those too. Could've been as simple as getting a new motor, and lubing some things, might've gotten expensive quickly. Moral of the story, I'm glad I didn't win that item. Could've been a pain getting it operational again.

I've got a Ritter edge sander. It's not fancy, but I haven't had any problems with it.

[Erik Loza]

Interesting news... No firsthand experience with Ritter except to say that their line boring machines have a pretty solid reputation in the industry. A number of my pro customers own them and say they work well.

Erik

[Max Neu]

i have their line bore machine, pocket hole machine, and face frame table. They are a no frills designed machines, but have been good dependable machines. I didn't even know they made shapers, but I could imagine they would be pretty crude for that kind of machinery. Like Peter said, you could probably fix about anything on these with a trip to your local hardware store.

[Mike Heidrick]

They made some neat machines but nothing I wanted to afford. Definitely pro quality machines.

[Peter Kelly]

I called to get a price on a Ritter shaper a couple of weeks ago, the salesman left a message when he returned my call, and I didn't get back to him until today. Apparently Ritter closed their doors this week. Bummer. Scratch one more builder of American made Equipment. What are we left with now? Northfield, Unique, Castle, ......?Weaver still makes shapers: http://www.weaver-sales.com/3-shaper-system-display.html Sad to hear about Ritter.

[J.R. Rutter]

My Ritter TESA coping rig has been good to me. RIP.

[Samuel Nichols]

Good news... (unless you don't like Ritter)

Our company acquired their IP and has been building much of their base line here in Michigan.
We have already made some improvements to machines. Hopefully you will give us a chance to serve your company moving forward.

[Martin Wasner]

Good news... (unless you don't like Ritter)

Our company acquired their IP and has been building much of their base line here in Michigan.
We have already made some improvements to machines. Hopefully you will give us a chance to serve your company moving forward.


You guys need to start making the linebore again that drills on the underside and the table doesn't move. I've got an ancient R-46, most of the time the table moving isn't a big deal, but it is a bit of a pain with big parts, and you're just finishing off the end of them.

[Samuel Nichols]

You guys need to start making the linebore again that drills on the underside and the table doesn't move. I've got an ancient R-46, most of the time the table moving isn't a big deal, but it is a bit of a pain with big parts, and you're just finishing off the end of them.

Thanks for the feedback Martin. We have discussed that. Seems people are about 50/50 on whether they want top down or bottom up on the drills. All of ours, as you know, are top down. We do have the R19 that is top down with the drills moving instead of the table. This might be of interest.

[Martin Wasner]

Thanks for the feedback Martin. We have discussed that. Seems people are about 50/50 on whether they want top down or bottom up on the drills. All of ours, as you know, are top down. We do have the R19 that is top down with the drills moving instead of the table. This might be of interest.


Hard to say what is right or wrong. The R46 is probably the most common double row line bore I see used, but I don't know that I've ever seen the under table one from Ritter for sale. There isn't a ton of options out there if you want to punch a ton of holes at once. Maggi has one that goes from the underside, Gannomat makes a really nice one, and I'm sure there's others that I'm unaware of.

Linebores are a shrinking market too. I know a couple of shops that flat out sold theirs to free up floor space and if they need to drill holes in a random piece they do so on the cnc. I don't have a cnc currently, but long term I plan on putting one into service. My R46 is cranky, old, and if I weren't planning on getting a cnc I would upgrade it. But, once the cnc is in place, it won't see much use.


I'd like to see someone else make a rotisserie door clamp. Options in the US are JLT and Doucet. Both are good, but competition is a good thing I think.


Good luck to you. I think you picked the right time to make a run at it.

[Samuel Nichols]

Hard to say what is right or wrong. The R46 is probably the most common double row line bore I see used, but I don't know that I've ever seen the under table one from Ritter for sale. There isn't a ton of options out there if you want to punch a ton of holes at once. Maggi has one that goes from the underside, Gannomat makes a really nice one, and I'm sure there's others that I'm unaware of.

Linebores are a shrinking market too. I know a couple of shops that flat out sold theirs to free up floor space and if they need to drill holes in a random piece they do so on the cnc. I don't have a cnc currently, but long term I plan on putting one into service. My R46 is cranky, old, and if I weren't planning on getting a cnc I would upgrade it. But, once the cnc is in place, it won't see much use.


I'd like to see someone else make a rotisserie door clamp. Options in the US are JLT and Doucet. Both are good, but competition is a good thing I think.


Good luck to you. I think you picked the right time to make a run at it.

Ok thanks for the feedback. I hear what you are saying about the CNCs.

[Erik Loza]

As Martin said, one of the reasons the Europeans all drill from underneath is the dust/chips issue. I can't imagine having to blow or sweep a panel each time I drilled a row of holes in it.

Also, in my opinion, the line boring machine market is going away. For the reason Martin mentioned. CNC's are coming down in price and a lot of guys would rather put that $5K or $10K toward a CNC. We were just talking about this in a different thread. I can tell you that from the sales side of things (14+ years selling this type of equipment), I can remember a handful line/construction boring machine inquiries over the last year. But CNC business is booming. I hope you guys do well but the best machine in the world needs to have a market. Just my 2-cents.

Erik

[Samuel Nichols]

Understood. We know that not all of the 180 machines that Ritter used to make are as marketable as they once were. We have learned a lot in the past 6 months about what people want and where the market is going. Seems the clamping tables, face frame tables, and edge sanders are the most popular to date.