Veritas # 1 BU plane

[Curt Putnam]

I want one! Very unsure why, I just do

[David Bassett]

Is that a real thing? Are you making a product request?

Confused LV fan.

[Frederick Skelly]

Looks real. LINK (https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/hand-tools/planes/bench/111077-veritas-bevel-up-number-1-plane). It's out of stock until at least 12/24. But that's the case for a lot of their stuff.

I bought a Wood River #1 when they first came out. For $100 at that time, it was worth it just as a curiousity. It's a lot like a block plane and I like it. I'll bet the BU version from LV will be even more so. I probably won't buy it because I dont need two Number 1s. For $189, Id rather have another block plane.

[David Bassett]

Thanks! My bad. ('Cuz looking for a bevel-up plane under bench planes instead of bevel-up planes is so intuitive! I can't wait until their new website is organized as well as the old one.)

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks! My bad. ('Cuz looking for a bevel-up plane under bench planes instead of bevel-up planes is so intuitive! I can't wait until their new website is organized as well as the old one.)

Tell me about it. It doesn't seem possible to go straight to the tool page. Then clicking on tools brings up on over screen that takes down the tools screen when you try to dismiss it making one have to start all over again. Something had me looking the other night that was a pain to find, the Miniature Router Plane. It isn't listed with the other router planes. Are a few extra pixels really that expensive?

BTW, with my Safari browser the images at the bottom of the page for associated items are distorted.

I can understand wanting to update the look of a web site but shouldn't part of the update take into account the user experience?

jtk

[Bob Betker]

It is amazing that a company that has such great products and terrific customer service has accepted such a mediocre web site since the update a couple of years ago.
I sent them a message back in June to see if they could restore some of functionality that was on the old wishlist, things like prioritizing items and sorting by other than the date you added the item to the wishlist. They said they would look into it but nothing has happened.

I liked the old web site, I could find things easily; now not so much.

[David Bassett]

... I can understand wanting to update the look of a web site but shouldn't part of the update take into account the user experience?


It is amazing that a company that has such great products and terrific customer service has accepted such a mediocre web site since the update a couple of years ago. ...

I feel like I started this and need to defend LV a little.

Rob Lee's explained why they changed the website. Basically technology and regulations have marched on and their old website didn't allow them to keep up. Basically (my paraphrase!) they switched from home grown code friendly for English speakers working on a computer to a modern platform product that'll solve their regulatory requirements and make things better for other, e.g. smart phone, users. In doing so they lost a lot of the user-friendliness they'd baked into the old site. Eventually, he said, they hope to learn the new knobs and tune the new site to about where the old one was. It's obviously still a work in progress.

Now's probably not the time with Covid-19 shortages and shipping problems plus the Holiday rush, but if you save up suggestions until the new year, I bet CS would be happy to hear and send them to the developers.

[Hilton Ralphs]

Now's probably not the time with Covid-19 shortages and shipping problems plus the Holiday rush, but if you save up suggestions until the new year, I bet CS would be happy to hear and send them to the developers.

If anything now IS the time to fix it. Staff are presumably still getting paid so why not get the propeller heads to sort this out whilst twiddling their pencils at home. This is of course assuming LV has in-house skills.

The look and feel is great but functionally it's very very poor.

[David Bassett]

If anything now IS the time to fix it. Staff are presumably still getting paid so why not get the propeller heads to sort this out whilst twiddling their pencils at home. This is of course assuming LV has in-house skills.

The look and feel is great but functionally it's very very poor.

If they're paying people who have the skill and are just sitting around, I agree.

But based on what I'm seeing around here, I assume everyone there who can work has constraints making them less efficient and many many more "gotcha's" making their tasks much more difficult. You know, suppliers saying, "you know that product arriving this week? It's not gonna' happen. Maybe next week." Customers calling about this or that, either the 2nd's sale problems or special requests for the holiday or shippers not delivering. (I had two UPS packages, one from LV, go from "we'll deliver on" to "not happening, we'll get back to you" status in UPS tracking. Not LV's fault, but I bet they get calls and try to help, it's what they do.)

[Frederick Skelly]

Couple off topic thoughts. LV is built on customer service, and their website interface is an important part of our customer experience. From things he's said, I think Rob Lee gets that. I definitely got the impression the new site was built by someone outside LV, which may reduce their options in a pandemic. Plus, the old site we knew and liked had 20 years of tuning and tweaking - a wholesale system replacement may not catch up with that in 18 mos in this crazy environment.

I don't know if this helps, but I've found it is often faster to use the search function to find what I need - if I know what that is and I'm not just browsing.

Fred

[Rob Lee]

Hi -

Thanks for the comments - all are heard - and get distributed to the appropriate folks.

Just 2-3 weeks ago we integrated and turned on a state-of-the-art search engine which learns using AI (Coveo)... so there will be rapid improvements in search result quality. I am certainly finding things more easily. It is still in phase one of it's deployment - and we are continuing to work on the design of more advanced function. At the same time - we are turning our attention to a redesign and re-structure of navigation. What we have currently is navigation based on the organization of the PIM system (Product Information Management) we are using. So it's about as intuitve as the Dewey Decimal system for non-users.

Yes - the old site navigation was much more coherent, but it also used structures that we can no longer use and maintain mobile compatibilty. We're still working on new templates to provide similar functionality.

It's a slow, painful, and expensive process - like paying lawyers to do programming!

The old site was comfortable, familiar, and dependable - we'll get there with this one too.

On a good note - we sailed through Cyber Monday without the issues that struck us for the seconds sale. Progress!

Cheers -

Rob

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks for the reply Rob.

Surely you are likely looking forward to having increased site functionality even more than us.

Is there any thought of having a site comments section so users can make suggestions?

jtk

[Bob Betker]

Rob: Thanks for the quick response. I'm looking forward to seeing the new features.
Stay safe and Happy Holidays.

Bob

[Prashun Patel]

As a business owner myself, I can say I empathize with lee valley. As a consumer, it’s easy to be an expert because we all believe the customer comes first and our own cursory understanding of what it takes to run a business makes us experts in criticizing the lack of change.

But unless ownership or staff or philosophy has changed (none has happened) we’d do better to give that company (and lie Nielsen) a break. How many hundreds of times has lv gone the extra mile or you get a personal message from the owner? This has happened to me alone probably 5 times.

These guys are in a tough business and covid certainly hasn’t helped.

No harm in being an involved, constructively criticizing customer. Just have a little patience. Maybe not for every company, but at least lv and ln.

[Rob Lee]

Thanks for the reply Rob.

Surely you are likely looking forward to having increased site functionality even more than us.

Is there any thought of having a site comments section so users can make suggestions?

jtk

Hi Jim - that's a great observation - and we'll be doing it.... but just not now.

If we solicit commentary, I'd want to be in a position to be responsive - and we just can't at this time. We're so far behind in correspondence it's embarrassing.... the volume of email we get now is staggering. Seems like everyone has lots of time to type these days.... :) .... I'm already concerned about the load on our staff. They care about their work - and being behind is stressful, and upsetting.

Then too - our short term development roadmap (and budget) is completely planned.... and there's so much to work on, that it would be difficult to even guesstimate timing.

We will do it though...just a bit later....

Cheers -

Rob

[Rob Lee]

As a business owner myself, I can say I empathize with lee valley. As a consumer, it’s easy to be an expert because we all believe the customer comes first and our own cursory understanding of what it takes to run a business makes us experts in criticizing the lack of change.

But unless ownership or staff or philosophy has changed (none has happened) we’d do better to give that company (and lie Nielsen) a break. How many hundreds of times has lv gone the extra mile or you get a personal message from the owner? This has happened to me alone probably 5 times.

These guys are in a tough business and covid certainly hasn’t helped.

No harm in being an involved, constructively criticizing customer. Just have a little patience. Maybe not for every company, but at least lv and ln.

Hi Prashun -

Thanks for that. Everyday is new adventure in some twist in the course of this pandemic. It's business whack-a-mole......

We have a "stand-up" meeting every morning to go over what's changed - every weekday now (used to be weekends too).... there's always something new to adapt to.

The possibility of imminent shutdown in any area of the business keeps us on our toes (and at at our computers). I already have feedback from one Director level staff member on this thread.... and she should be enjoying a day off....(you know who you are).

Cheers -

Rob

[Frederick Skelly]

We get it Rob. Hang in there!
Fred

[Todd Trebuna]

Couple off topic thoughts. LV is built on customer service, and their website interface is an important part of our customer experience. From things he's said, I think Rob Lee gets that. I definitely got the impression the new site was built by someone outside LV, which may reduce their options in a pandemic. Plus, the old site we knew and liked had 20 years of tuning and tweaking - a wholesale system replacement may not catch up with that in 18 mos in this crazy environment.

I don't know if this helps, but I've found it is often faster to use the search function to find what I need - if I know what that is and I'm not just browsing.

Fred


I'm in LE and we had a computerized report writing system that was kind of home grown. By the end of it's life cycle, I heard they added a million lines of code. Every time something got fixed something else would break. On one occasion, I um heard (can neither confirm nor deny) that the Victim's social security number was printing in the 9 digit zip code field. At some point you have to choose to abandon the boat and jump on another one. Often that comes at a cost , in that, it's like an old car....it's sometimes more comforting to know what the problems are then to buy another car where everything is going to be a surprise. I'm sure nothing can happen quickly in this environment.

Also, to OP, there are showing that plane with PM-V11 as "available".

[Curt Putnam]

Wow! Talk about a thread going sideways! I just said I was not sure why but I wanted that cute little plane. I thought that perhaps it would engender some discussion about sub-normal sized planes.

Rob Lee, please accept my apology. It was not my intent to turn this into an LV bashing party.

Having spent the last years of my career designing and coding portions of a sizable MRP/Customer Service system, I am well aware of the dangers of new system implementation. There us an old ditty ---

99 bugs on the wall,
99 bugs on the wall,
take one down, patch it around
127 bugs on the wall

The holy grail of software engineering is to deliver probably correct software, on time, on budget. Hasn't been done yet.

We all know the system, as it is now, is sub-optimal. I think we all also know that you will fix things just as fast as the pandemic and the economies will permit. We are just as children, frustrated because we want it all now.

Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas to you and yours ....

[Jim Koepke]

Wow! Talk about a thread going sideways! I just said I was not sure why but I wanted that cute little plane. I thought that perhaps it would engender some discussion about sub-normal sized planes.

Rob Lee, please accept my apology. It was not my intent to turn this into an LV bashing party.
[edited]


I should also add my apology to all, especially Curt and Rob for going off track.

Back to the begining:


I want one! Very unsure why, I just do

Curt, they are handy for working in small places or on small items.

Most recently mine was used where a larger plane would have been awkward:

446478

At 5-1/2" long with a 1-1/4" wide blade the plane is actually smaller than many block planes. An added bonus is it has a chip breaker which would not be the case with a bevel up plane.

jtk

[Ben Ellenberger]

I’ll add my name to the list of people who found the old site much easier to navigate. I typically find things by going through the structures of tool categories and sub-categories. I find myself using the search function more often on the new site because the categories are more difficult to dig through. I think the new site has gotten easier to use (maybe I’ve gotten more used to it, maybe you’ve improved it? I don’t pay close attention to the details.)

I fully understand that sometimes these wholesale replacement projects are necessary, and sometimes they have to go through growing pains. I’ve always appreciated your customer service and I’m sure you’ll work out the kinks in time.

Drill bits! That was the category I was trying to remember. On the old site you had sub-categories for specific types of bits. On the new one all that stuff us under drilling. You either need to scroll through everything or use the search function if you are looking for a specific type of drill bit.

[Zach Dillinger]

I want one of the Veritas #1s, now that I know they exist. Very cool!