What is right about WoodRiverplanes?

[Sean Hughto]

Maybe this will be a shorter conversation?

I'll start with 2.

After a dubious beginning where WC essentially
- pulled a standard corporate rip off of popping a copy of an expensive popular product in China so as to reap the market of woodworkers who were interested in a plane that looked a lot like the expensive ones but was $150 cheaper
- suffered the typical problem inherent in such maneuvers of making something that looked like the expensive original, but did not come close on actual quality and performance
WC through a few more versions and iterations have now made a plane that works pretty good. (1. "right" on perseverance and actually providing a usable tool eventually)

It seems to fill a niche for those who can't manage to fettle a $35 vintage Stanley and are unwilling to invest a bit more to have a true heirloom high quality lifetime American made tool. (2. I suppose this is a "right" by some.)

[george wilson]

Hopefully,Wood River planes are the result of an effort (with plenty of American coaching) by the Chinese to actually make a high quality product. I have a friend who,as I have mentioned,has made himself a millionaire dealing with Chinese made (mostly) tourist trinkets. But,it seems that many of his products are the result of 3 or 4 trips he has had to make to China to get them straightened out on how to make even a SIMPLE product. Most of the things we have,and use in our daily lives have no place in Chinese culture. They do not use the same tools and machines that we use. And,it takes a lot of expense and effort to teach them how to make products that we are very familiar with.

[Hilton Ralphs]

Most of the things we have,and use in our daily lives have no place in Chinese culture. They do not use the same tools and machines that we use. And,it takes a lot of expense and effort to teach them how to make products that we are very familiar with.

Which begs the question then, why are certain things made in China at all? With the technology we have at the moment surely a lot of products can be made using more automated/cnc processes and less labour? I'm not in the manufacturing sector so I don't know enough about current trends.

Back on topic, Wood River is one of those middle of the road products which I tend to stay away from. I either want to buy the best (LN/Veritas) or go with a cheapie that I know will have problems that I can either live with or fix myself. The one thing I hate is to spend good money and then have hassles and regret not coughing up a bit more upfront.

[Simon MacGowen]

WC did one thing right in the WR planes and that made all the difference: Rob Cosman. They had the expert who could pinpoint the problems they endured in their V1 & 2 planes. That might appear to be a no brainer, but WC didn't have or get the right user expertise when they copied...Stanley? LN? (the debate never ends).

When you put Rob Cosman's name behind a more economical hand tool alternative, people would start to notice and try. Of course, we have many equally capable plane experts like Rob as plane advisors but WC picked its choice and it worked out well.

I am not a fan of some of Rob's ways of doing things, but I'd give him credits for reviving the WR planes.

The Chinese manufacturers can do anything under the sky as long as you can come up with the spec., standards and money. They can send a manned satellite to the sky and to say they can't produce high quality products is at best naive or ignorant.

It is us the importers who are responsible for bringing poor stuff into our market. Of course, we can also argue that it is us customers who cause all the downfalls because we are only wiling to pay the least (while expecting the best).

Simon

[Pat Barry]

The Chinese manufacturers can do anything under the sky as long as you can come up with the spec., standards and money. They can send a manned satellite to the sky and to say they can't produce high quality products is at best naive or ignorant.
CORRECT. When we farm our technology to someone else, sooner or later they will be come the experts. It doesn't take very long for this to happen in the internet and interconnected world. The folks running America (the money people) demand short term profits and have near sighted vision. They only deal in short term things, thus they don't see and don't care about the long term. In fact there are more smart people in China than there are in most of the rest of the world combined, so it won't be surprising that they will be leading the technology in the future, especially when we give the the training and expertise to begin with.

[Dale Murray]

Which begs the question then, why are certain things made in China at all?

A few years back a Wired article about a headphone manufacturer covered this very subject. They had sent manufacturing to China to save money, however, they multiple trips to China every year to deal with manufacturing issues plus the cost of defective production runs plus to resulting poor reputation with retailers due to undelivered product caused them to bring manufacturing back to the states. Other things had changed in the manufacturing work during those years; automation became cheaper and better and 3d printing of prototypes are now a desktop printer away.

I know a guy who owns a bike company. When he decided to have a line of frames made in China (he had a USA line too) he said, "in one year there will be several companies selling frames identical to this one". They may not be the same exact materials or the same quality but they will be copied, and that sucks.

[Jim Koepke]

One thing that always comes to mind during these discussions is a John Ruskin quote:

“There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey.”

The final act on this all comes down to perception. Whether one perceives something is right or something is wrong, their perception will be the guide to their decision on moving forward.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

Hopefully,Wood River planes are the result of an effort (with plenty of American coaching) by the Chinese to actually make a high quality product. I have a friend who,as I have mentioned,has made himself a millionaire dealing with Chinese made (mostly) tourist trinkets. But,it seems that many of his products are the result of 3 or 4 trips he has had to make to China to get them straightened out on how to make even a SIMPLE product. Most of the things we have,and use in our daily lives have no place in Chinese culture. They do not use the same tools and machines that we use. And,it takes a lot of expense and effort to teach them how to make products that we are very familiar with.

This is 100% spot on (though I think it sells the Chinese short - we're talking here about a culture with a very long track-record of innovation).

There are right and wrong ways to do business over there. A common wrong way is to bid your job out from afar, accept the lowest offer after minimal due-diligence, and expect the profit dollars to roll in. That's how you end up with a brand-equity-destroying fiasco. If you treat your suppliers like sources of commodity labor then that's exactly what you'll get.

The right way is to pick one or a small set of suppliers and work intimately with them to develop and maintain the necessary knowledge and skills. Apple/Foxconn is a commonly cited example...

[Simon MacGowen]

Apple/Foxconn is a commonly cited example...

Most (all?) iPads/iPhones are now made in China with parts coming from Japan, etc. One story in Forbes suggests that, believe it or not, China makes little from the deal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/24/china-makes-almost-nothing-out-of-apples-ipads-and-i/#3255342e55b1

Depending on who you trust, some are saying keeping jobs in North America is not the solution, but the creation of high quality or high etch or high pay jobs is only way to keep us prosperous. They are arguing that we have been shipping "dirty" jobs to the third world that nobody or few would want to do that in our own backyard. True to some extent, I guess.

Unless you run a small company like Lost Art Press selling a limited line of products that are all made or printed in the country, outsourcing or moving your production to Asia, Mexico, etc. is the only solution. WalMart would fail in no time if it sold only non-Asian products...most of its shelves would be left empty.

All my premium tools are made in the US or Canada (but even some parts of Veritas, e.g., my plow cutters are from Asia) or from Europe. But my house is full of imported goods, including the desktop I am now typing this message -- boldly marked: "Made in China."

Simon

[Simon MacGowen]

CORRECT. When we farm our technology to someone else, sooner or later they will be come the experts.

It is happening in all kinds of sectors. A PBS documentary pointed out that the US TV manufacturing industry has largely died (China now produces most of the world's TVs) and even if people wanted to invest in TV set production, the skills, the factories and what not are no longer there. To start from scratch, it is an uphill battle...why bother. Both American and European automakers have plants in China (for domestic consumption); it is a matter of time the same brands now sold in North America and Europe will have their origin from China. It has happened to some of the luxury fashion brands and will happen to the auto industry, unless our government will do something about it. But then the big government and small government debate will mean nothing will move on anything.

Simon

[Patrick Chase]

Most (all?) iPads/iPhones are now made in China with parts coming from Japan, etc. One story in Forbes suggests that, believe it or not, China makes little from the deal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/24/china-makes-almost-nothing-out-of-apples-ipads-and-i/#3255342e55b1

Your have to be very careful with numbers like that because of the way multinationals manage transfer prices (roughly speaking the prices they assign to components at intermediate steps within their supply chain).

The point of my previous post was that Apple has spent a long time partnering with a single Chinese supplier (Hon Hai Precision, a.k.a. Foxconn) to the point of working with them to build separate dedicated factories for Apple's products. Apple has their own people on-site 100% of the time to make sure that everything's done as expected. It's almost exactly the opposite of the "hit-and-run outsourcing" strategy that gets so many companies into trouble.

[Patrick Chase]

It is happening in all kinds of sectors. A PBS documentary pointed out that the US TV manufacturing industry has largely died (China now produces most of the world's TVs)

EDIT again: Obviously I misread Simon's post. I read it as "US manufacturing", not "US TV manufacturing". Sorry!

The US manufacturing sector is currently the largest it has ever been in terms of constant-dollar value added, which is the conventional measure of a manufacturing sector's size. "Value added" means that it excludes the value components imported from abroad and then integrated into a larger product, so for example it excludes the value of the Japanese-made engines in many "US made" cars. "Constant dollar" means that past years' figures are adjusted to account for inflation.

US manufacturing has largely died in individual sectors, for example consumer electronics.

See for example: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/02/us-manufacturing-past-and-potential-future-baily-bosworth/us-manufacturing-past-and-potential-future-baily-bosworth.pdf.

Note that manufacturing value added has been ~12% of GDP for decades, while manufacturing's share of *employment* has dropped from 25% to ~8%. That productivity gain is due to a combination of automation and a shift to less labor-intensive sectors.

EDIT: US GDP has increased by 5.3X since 1960 in constant-dollar, while population has only increased by 1.8X, so the productivity gain since 1960 is about (25/8)*5.3/1.8 = 9X.

[Simon MacGowen]

Apple has their own people on-site 100% of the time to make sure that everything's done as expected. It's almost exactly the opposite of the "hit-and-run outsourcing" strategy that gets so many companies into trouble.

Agreed.

Not sure if it is still the case with SawStop, but SawStop had its own resident engineers on site when the first batch of saws were produced in Taiwan which has had a solid history of manufacturing reliable woodworking machines from tablesaws to jointers to drill presses etc. Still SawStop didn't want to take a chance and put its own people there to ensure quality and consistency. I have yet to meet a SawStop customer who isn't happy with his machine.

SawStop may have hired and trained some local Chinese people there by now to do the QC and they are on he payroll of SawStop, not the local manufacturer, to keep the costs down as American expats are a huge overhead when stationed in that part of world.

That's the only way to do business in my opinion if hit and miss quality is to be avoided, at least until China and other Asian countries adopt a best-practice business culture and don't cut corners.

Simon

[Patrick Chase]

Maybe this will be a shorter conversation?

I'll start with 2.

After a dubious beginning where WC essentially
- pulled a standard corporate rip off of popping a copy of an expensive popular product in China so as to reap the market of woodworkers who were interested in a plane that looked a lot like the expensive ones but was $150 cheaper
- suffered the typical problem inherent in such maneuvers of making something that looked like the expensive original, but did not come close on actual quality and performance
WC through a few more versions and iterations have now made a plane that works pretty good. (1. "right" on perseverance and actually providing a usable tool eventually)

It seems to fill a niche for those who can't manage to fettle a $35 vintage Stanley and are unwilling to invest a bit more to have a true heirloom high quality lifetime American made tool. (2. I suppose this is a "right" by some.)

As a former ME and product designer I would observe that the design is only the starting point in terms of getting quality products to the end-user.

Even if you copy the very best design in the world you will invariably screw it up if you don't understand what dimensions/aspects/properties/etc are critical to the product's performance and therefore quality.

Also, the best approach/design varies based on the manufacturing environment (technology, worker skill, labor costs, etc). As a simple example, back when I designed products to be made in the US we put a very heavy emphasis on "design for manufacturing", in other words minimizing the amount of time it took relatively skilled workers to assemble the product, even when doing so added to the direct material and capital costs. When we outsourced the same product family to Asia the emphasis flipped. Unit labor costs were much lower, so the emphasis was more on direct material cost and we didn't invest as much in automation (capital).

All of this is to say that blindly copying L-N's design was unlikely to be a winning strategy for at least 2 reasons. I'm not surprised it took Quangsheng a few tries to get it all sorted out.

[Sean Hughto]

WC didn't just copy the basic Stanley Bailey design. That would have been no big deal in anyone's book as Clifton and Record, and Sargent, and on and on. WC took LNs version of the design as modified as well as sort of "trade dress". ( i.e. the look LN had developed).

[Mike Henderson]

WC didn't just copy the basic Stanley Bailey design. That would have been no big deal in anyone's book as Clifton and Record, and Sargent, and on and on. WC took LNs version of the design as modified as well as sort of "trade dress". ( i.e. the look LN had developed).
If WC did take the design as modified by LN, and LN did not have any protections for the modifications they made, then WC was in the clear.

Copying "trade dress" to the point that someone will confuse the two products is not okay. If you put a WC plane and an LN plane side-by-side, would anyone think they were the same planes?

Mike

[But I think this thread is just going to re-hash what has already been discussed in the previous thread. We've already shown that copying non-protected material is not wrong; that it's encouraged by our legal and economic system. And I think we put to bed the urban legend that WC used an LN plane to make the molds for the WR planes. Now, we have the accusation of copying of "trade dress".]

[Sean Hughto]

Mike, I have no interest in arguing about this. I don't contend they did anything technically illegal. I was merely trying to convey to Patrick that I thought it went beyond using the mechanics of the long expired Stanley- Bailey patents. I personally remember well the days when my local WC had LN planes and I saw the original WR planes and it was obvious to my eye that they saw an opportunity to make more margin with what was effectively a knock off. Legal or not, whatever.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike, I have no interest in arguing about this. I don't contend they did anything technically illegal. I was merely trying to convey to Patrick that I thought it went beyond using the mechanics of the long expired Stanley- Bailey patents. I personally remember well the days when my local WC had LN planes and I saw the original WR planes and it was obvious to my eye that they saw an opportunity to make more margin with what was effectively a knock off. Legal or not, whatever.
So what's wrong with that?

Mike

[This is off subject but I've only owned one WR plane - the Stanley 65 knockoff block plane. I just didn't like it and eventually sold it.]

[Sean Hughto]

This thread was intended to discuss what is right about the planes. I was imagining folks who are fans coming up with specific aspects of the tools as they use them that they appreciate. I was just trying to concede what I saw as a shaky beginning to get to the "right" of fixing it.

And yup there is plenty corporate America can legally do that I think is ethically compromised and not anything I want to support with my money.

[Kees Heiden]

It's the price and the overall quality. You get a lot of usefull plane for your money.

They're not quite my cup of tea, because I'm not into modern planes, but I also have the low angle blockplane and it is very decent.

[Graham Haydon]

Sean I have tried one V3 WoodRiver. I liked the plane Iron. The ones in the UK are I think T10 carbon steel. Not sure on all the details but I think it s a water quench. Anyway it honed nice on my oil stones and I prefer it to the A2 in other brands I have tried. I think they have a different yoke design to most planes I've seen where it engages the cap iron for adjustment. Not sure it makes much difference but it's different. The one I tried was very well finished and well within specs for accurate work. It gave the impression of something made very well. I have been able to look at a couple of other well made modern planes and in one example I felt the WoodRiver was better but only slightly and in another it seemed pretty equal. The lateral adjustment was nicely made, I think on earlier ones it was just a pressed item. The ergonomics were fine for me, some of the early ones got flack for a bad placement of the tote. This issue is pretty subjective though. I felt it was good value for money.

[Daniel Rode]

My opinion is that the #4 V3, which is the only one I have used, is very well made in every aspect. I think it is an absolute bargain and works perfectly. Smooth, predictable operation, nicely finished, comfortable. I also have the polar opposite. A modern Stanley #4 "contractor model" purchased about 10 years ago. Despite many hours of fettling, it is barely fit to do the roughest work and incapable of smoothing. The operation is best described as stiff and crunchy, unpredictable and uncomfortable. It is made in the general shape of a Stanley Bailey #4 but that's where the similarities end. Both planes are made offshore (Both in China, I believe).

If I were to purchase another modern bench plane, it would be a Wood River. But it's doubtful I would buy one at all.

The vintage planes have 3 advantages for me over any modern plane. First, they are much less expensive. The several vintage planes I've purchased have required very little effort to prepare. The most expensive of the lot was still a small fraction the cost of a LN, Veritas or even Wood River. Secondly, they are significantly lighter that the modern premium copies. I much prefer lighter planes. Lastly, I like using (reusing) the vintage tools. I like the history and patina, I like that they are being used to make things instead of going to a landfill or being turned into a coat rack. As a bonus, I think the vintage tools are possibly superior in some ways. Many will disagree, but I'm not convinced the new irons and chip breakers are as good as the old. The different shapes, thicknesses and alloys are just that: different. Perhaps hundreds of years of experience in working wood influenced the way the old plane were designed but no one bothered to write it down for today's engineers to read.

Maybe they did write it down but we think we know better today :)

If I ever buy a new plane, I'm pretty sure it will be a wooden double iron plane.

[Gene Davis]

Can't say why for sure, but I think I want to have a 4-1/2-size smoother. I am in a part of the country (Denver metro area) where there is no market for vintage planes, so eBay is my only option if I want an old Stanley.

The eBay market usually has two or three 4-1/2 planes, the good ones going for about the price of the WoodRiver. Woodcraft is discounting them this month and one can get one for around $140 plus tax.

The WoodRiver is much more like the Stanley Bedrock models than the Sweethearts and Baileys, and if a Bedrock appears on eBay, the market for that plane, in good shape, seems to be around $275. So the WoodRiver looks like a bargain.

The comparable LN 4-1/2 goes for $160 more than the WR, a premium that goes to almost $185 when compared to the WR at its this-month sale price. With that $185 difference, one could buy a nice set of bench chisels.

I have watched the YouTube 1/2-hour-length video in which Rob Cosman examines the V3 WR 4-1/2, and it is terribly convincing. The plane appears to be a very well-designed tool that functions beautifully.

[Frederick Skelly]

This thread was intended to discuss what is right about the planes. I was imagining folks who are fans coming up with specific aspects of the tools as they use them that they appreciate.

Hi Sean. Here's my 2 cents in answer to your question.

I find the casting to have excellent fit/finish. The sole is flat, the sides are square. The blade is thick, sharpens well and holds an edge acceptably long. The chipbreaker fits properly. The back of the blades sometimes need work - not uncommon or terribly surprising to me. The tool takes shavings as thin and chatters as little as any other plane I own (LVs and vintage).

Bought on sale, I've found the low number planes (e.g., 1, 3, 4) to be good value and perform well on the projects that I build. Some of the higher number planes get closer in price to LV when not on sale - enough to make me think about going with LV. But I have tried WR's longer planes and they seem to perform as well as the two small ones that I own. I see no reason NOT to consider them. In fact, I was seriously considering a WR #6 when a buddy of mine offerred to ship me a Tom-Bussey-prepared Bedrock #6 that he didn't want any more. (How the heck do you turn down one of Tablesaw Tom's beauties for less than $100?) Else, I'd have watched for a sale at WC and may very well have nabbed one. (WR #6 is $165 on sale today, vs $269 for the Veritas). BTW, I'm a HUGE LV fan.

Fred

[Brett Luna]

I'd have watched for a sale at WC and may very well have nabbed one. (WR #6 is $165 on sale today, vs $269 for the Veritas). BTW, I'm a HUGE LV fan.

Same here. I'm no hand plane expert, by any means...but I like my WR #6 that I purchased during a similar sale. The performance-to-price ratio is pretty darned high, in my opinion. Not that I'm done with Veritas planes, though. I like my #4 a lot and recently obtained the LA Jack.

[Tom Vanzant]

Gene, I have a cabinet full of Stanleys and Bedrocks, and one WR, a #4-1/2 V3. Other than a slightly rough lateral adjuster, it has been a delight. Be aware that it weighs a full 1.25# more than the Stanley version...with the added weight, all you do is push. I bought mine at a WC sale a couple of years ago. Enjoy!