Lee Valley Annual “Seconds” sale announced

[Aaron Rosenthal]

Well, the fickle finger of fate has struck. ( I’m old enough to remember the Smother Brothers)
The sale starts at noon eastern time on Wednesday.
Waiting room holding area until you’re admitted to the sale room.
I wonder how it’s going to work?

[Jim Koepke]

I wonder how it’s going to work?

Very fast.

jtk

[Rob Lee]

The answer, we hope, is "well"....

Advantages - there is no need get up early, or try to be "first". Previous years, we had volume issues that were not representative of the number of people trying to access the site. For example- hitting "refresh" kept spooling new jobs that overwhelmed the interface with our main system. We are scaled to accommodate large numbers of concurrent users. We also anticipate that it will smooth out the checkout process - by removing the "derby" element to the process. We will scale the concurrent number of visitors in real time, as we watch system performance. Those in the waiting room will have a live estimate of "wait time". If this works how we anticipate - everyone will get in in very short order.

Disadvantages - everyone coming to the site will have to go through the "waiting room", whether visiting the sale or not - there was just no way to implement it otherwise.....

This year - there is a lot of inventory in some items..... so everyone should have a crack at something. There are at least two planes with more than 300 seconds available (ouch) , and more than 500 20 TPI Dovetail saws (ouch again).

We have our fingers crossed.....

Cheers -

Rob






Well, the fickle finger of fate has struck. ( I’m old enough to remember the Smother Brothers)
The sale starts at noon eastern time on Wednesday.
Waiting room holding area until you’re admitted to the sale room.
I wonder how it’s going to work?

[Jim Koepke]

Wouldn't you know it? Before getting the email on this an appointment was made for an eye exam next Wednesday at 9:10 am PDT.

That translates to 12:10 pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time)

About the only thing on my might want list would be a 20 ppi Dovetail Saw. Maybe one will be left after my appointment.

Maybe something else of interest will still be available.

jtk

[Nathan Johnson]

Wouldn't you know it? Before getting the email on this an appointment was made for an eye exam next Wednesday at 9:10 am PDT.

That translates to 12:10 pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time)

About the only thing on my might want list would be a 20 ppi Dovetail Saw. Maybe one will be left after my appointment.

Maybe something else of interest will still be available.

jtk

Aren't you retired? Just move the eye appointment, silly guy. :)

[Tyler Bancroft]

This year - there is a lot of inventory in some items..... so everyone should have a crack at something. There are at least two planes with more than 300 seconds available (ouch) , and more than 500 20 TPI Dovetail saws (ouch again).


I think I made a mistake by telling my wife I wasn't going to spend much on the sale this year.

[Aaron Rosenthal]

I think I made a mistake by telling my wife I wasn't going to spend much on the sale this year.
I say that every year.
Then, I have to apologize to her for gloating with my “cheap” purchases.

[Scott Winners]

I may have to get a "spare" dovetail saw. I don't think I will be sharpening that little guy with these old eyes of mine. Having a spare in the till will make it easier to send a dull one out to someone with better eyes than me.

I suppose I will have to go to the sale after all to find out the price.

[Jim Koepke]

Aren't you retired? Just move the eye appointment, silly guy. :)

Next available one is too far out. End of the year gets busy with retirees using their annual benefit before it turns into a pumpkin on midnight December 31st.

jtk

[Tom Levy]

Thank you for the heads up Rob! Let’s me get mentally ready for a big number this year! Getting the CC warmed up


The answer, we hope, is "well"....

Advantages - there is no need get up early, or try to be "first". Previous years, we had volume issues that were not representative of the number of people trying to access the site. For example- hitting "refresh" kept spooling new jobs that overwhelmed the interface with our main system. We are scaled to accommodate large numbers of concurrent users. We also anticipate that it will smooth out the checkout process - by removing the "derby" element to the process. We will scale the concurrent number of visitors in real time, as we watch system performance. Those in the waiting room will have a live estimate of "wait time". If this works how we anticipate - everyone will get in in very short order.

Disadvantages - everyone coming to the site will have to go through the "waiting room", whether visiting the sale or not - there was just no way to implement it otherwise.....

This year - there is a lot of inventory in some items..... so everyone should have a crack at something. There are at least two planes with more than 300 seconds available (ouch) , and more than 500 20 TPI Dovetail saws (ouch again).

We have our fingers crossed.....

Cheers -

Rob

[Tyler Bancroft]

I say that every year.
Then, I have to apologize to her for gloating with my “cheap” purchases.

I think I've found the flaw in your cunning plan.

[Tyler Bancroft]

One heck of a selection today...

[Aaron Rosenthal]

I was in 4 minutes into the sale.
Virtually every plane I was "Jonsing" was sold out.
Oh well, there were 4500 people ahead of me in the mix. What did I expect?

[Rob Lee]

One heck of a selection today...

A years "work" gone in minutes.....;)

And no system crash......

[Tyler Bancroft]

A years "work" gone in minutes.....;)

And no system crash......

I imagine there's a lot of happy people out there right now – for my part, I wasn't expecting to be able to find a Custom 4-1/2 until next year.

[JOEL MONGEON]

I couldn't check out fast enough! Half my cart was sold out before I could pay.
Glad your sale went so smoothly. I even bought a shooting board to go with my unexpected shooting plane.

[David Bassett]

... And no system crash......

Come on folks, step up to the challenge! :)

PS- I did my part already. (Good news / bad news situation. I must be pretty well provisioned, I already have the things I wanted. I did grab a miniature tool because, they're cute.)

[Alex Kapl]

picked up low angle jack

[Adam Grund]

I was in 4 minutes into the sale.
Virtually every plane I was "Jonsing" was sold out.
Oh well, there were 4500 people ahead of me in the mix. What did I expect?
Lucky for me, had to take my dad to a doc appt today and had already exhausted every other avenue of browsing that could capture my attention by time the sale came around, so I hopped on at the beginning also. With about the same people ahead of me, and the same entrance time- but man that felt like a smooth operation.
I oogled a bunch, ended up picking up both dovetail saws. Had to do 2 different carts, the first time I accidentally picked the 20tpi version and didn’t realize it until I cashed out. Oops! Oh well, now I got the set.
Had thoughts of buying much more, but coming in to our slow season I decided to be a bit conservative.

[Jason White]

A couple of things I wanted were sold out, but I was able to score a 4-1/2 custom smoother for less than the one that I had on backorder. So I saved some money and I'm going to get my new smoother sooner than expected! 😍

[Jason White]

Rob -- it went beautifully. Thanks so much for the great shopping experience!


The answer, we hope, is "well"....

Advantages - there is no need get up early, or try to be "first". Previous years, we had volume issues that were not representative of the number of people trying to access the site. For example- hitting "refresh" kept spooling new jobs that overwhelmed the interface with our main system. We are scaled to accommodate large numbers of concurrent users. We also anticipate that it will smooth out the checkout process - by removing the "derby" element to the process. We will scale the concurrent number of visitors in real time, as we watch system performance. Those in the waiting room will have a live estimate of "wait time". If this works how we anticipate - everyone will get in in very short order.

Disadvantages - everyone coming to the site will have to go through the "waiting room", whether visiting the sale or not - there was just no way to implement it otherwise.....

This year - there is a lot of inventory in some items..... so everyone should have a crack at something. There are at least two planes with more than 300 seconds available (ouch) , and more than 500 20 TPI Dovetail saws (ouch again).

We have our fingers crossed.....

Cheers -

Rob

[Jason White]

You will love it. One of my very favorite tools.


picked up low angle jack

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

I didn't get a chance, every time I put something in the cart it was marked as sold out by the time I got to pay...

oh well, next year...

[Tom Levy]

I somehow got all my selections, but saw things going fast.

4500 people waiting?? Are there really that many people who do hand tools and buy modern and know about the sale? I would guess the 200-300 people from this forum would be the top end range of #s queuing up for the 2nds sale.

[Jim Koepke]

Went to my eye exam and got back to find there were 20 ppi dovetail saws still available, so snagged one.

The 14 ppi for my grandson was so nice it was easy to spoil myself for one with a finer tooth count than my own saws.

Almost went for some of the miniature tools but decided to close the wallet. Did buy a couple of steel door hanger magnets.

Many other items were marked sold out.

jtk

[Rob Lee]

I somehow got all my selections, but saw things going fast.

4500 people waiting?? Are there really that many people who do hand tools and buy modern and know about the sale? I would guess the 200-300 people from this forum would be the top end range of #s queuing up for the 2nds sale.

Yes - there really are that many!

[Adam Grund]

Went to my eye exam and got back to find there were 20 ppi dovetail saws still available, so snagged one.

The 14 ppi for my grandson was so nice it was easy to spoil myself for one with a finer tooth count than my own saws.
jtk

Oh good! I had thought of you when I got on to the site this afternoon, thinking how your eye exam was right during the sale. Was a bit disappointed I hadn’t thought to ask if you’d like me to purchase whatever you were looking for and have it shipped to you, and then figure out repayment. So I’m glad you were able to snag what you were looking for.

[Jim Koepke]

Oh good! I had thought of you when I got on to the site this afternoon, thinking how your eye exam was right during the sale. Was a bit disappointed I hadn’t thought to ask if you’d like me to purchase whatever you were looking for and have it shipped to you, and then figure out repayment. So I’m glad you were able to snag what you were looking for.

Thanks for the thoughts Adam. My odds were pretty good when Rob Lee mentioned there were 500 seconds (OUCH!) on the 20 ppi dovetail saw. There were even 14 ppi dovetail saws left which was pretty tempting, but there is already one at that tooth count in my shop.

The 20 will be great for thin stock.

It currently appears there are only five items left, two of which are the dovetail saws.

jtk

[Aaron Rosenthal]

On the other hand, the Cyber Monday sale may not gave tools, but I can still lust after a few items with a fresh, spanking new gift card at a discount!

[David Publicover]

I thought it was a very well run operation this year. I was able to snag a medium shoulder plane and a LH skew rabbet plane. I had a couple other things but they disappeared during checkout. Oh well, someone else got some nice chisels. There’s a LV Store nearby, so I’ll get chisels another day.
Thanks to Rob for making it possible!

[Aaron Liebling]

So much better than years past!

I, too, picked up a LH skew rabbet.

[Tyler Bancroft]

It looks like right now (Thursday morning) there are still 20 tpi dovetail saws available!

[George Yetka]

I had my days off, I thought it was today. Oh well theres always next year.

[J. Greg Jones]

Rob, hopefully in the future the product supply challenges that we see today will be resolved. Having said that, it would have been nice if the customers who have had product on order for months and will still need to wait for months to have had advance right to refusal on the seconds. I would have jumped at the chance to pick up seconds of the mortise chisels I have on order.

[Patrick Kane]

Well, consider me fortunate then, because i was clueless of the sale this year. A buddy texted me at 11:59 or 12:00 and simply said "lee valley seconds sale Go! Go! Go!". Maybe a minute later i had a large shoulder plane in a cart and i checked out. Its something i dont have in my arsenal and ive waited and waited for one to hit the used market for 2-3 years. When i first got in through the waiting room, 95% of the planes were available. By the time i checked out and got back to the main page at 12:04 or whatever, 75% were sold out.

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

I support this idea, but hopefully we won't be in backorder purgatory next year

[al heitz]

Totally missed the announcement this time. So much for an early Santa.

[Mike Brady]

Question: "When is the Lie-Nielsen seconds sale?"

Answer:"There are no Lie-Nielsen seconds."

[Patrick Kane]

Received my plane on saturday. Lee Valley is up there with the best of them.

[Tyler Bancroft]

Received my plane on saturday. Lee Valley is up there with the best of them.


I got my Custom 4-1/2 today and was a little surprised – it looks to my eye like the defect was that the casting was dropped and one of the corners of the sole was warped, so the sole isn't flat. I've bought plenty of the seconds, and this is the first time there was a defect that'd affect usability. (I think it's only the second time I've ever been able to find the "defect" at all, which is a testament to LV's standards.)

[Chuck Hill]

I'd contact customer service. The sale clearly stated that none of the imperfections affected functionality. Perhaps one of the functionally imperfect soles got placed in the wrong pile and not caught.

[Jason White]

My 4-1/2 is being delivered tomorrow. Hope it's flat! 😳


I got my Custom 4-1/2 today and was a little surprised – it looks to my eye like the defect was that the casting was dropped and one of the corners of the sole was warped, so the sole isn't flat. I've bought plenty of the seconds, and this is the first time there was a defect that'd affect usability. (I think it's only the second time I've ever been able to find the "defect" at all, which is a testament to LV's standards.)

[Patrick Kane]

My large shoulder plane is virtually defect free. There is a small circular visual mark that is a slightly different color/tone from the surrounding metal.

[Jim Koepke]

I got my Custom 4-1/2 today and was a little surprised – it looks to my eye like the defect was that the casting was dropped and one of the corners of the sole was warped, so the sole isn't flat. I've bought plenty of the seconds, and this is the first time there was a defect that'd affect usability. (I think it's only the second time I've ever been able to find the "defect" at all, which is a testament to LV's standards.)

How badly out of flat is the sole?

Is it just one corner or does the sole have a large hump?

jtk

[Tyler Bancroft]

How badly out of flat is the sole?

Is it just one corner or does the sole have a large hump?

jtk

Perhaps 1/16th from flat at the worst spot, with a visible deformation extending over about a square centimeter. I dislike lapping and my tool rehab queue is already overfull, so I'm sending it back to LV.

[David Publicover]

That’s too bad Tyler. It seems unusual that it would have functionality issues as they advertise otherwise. I received my skew rabbet plane and medium shoulder plane yesterday. I could not determine what made them a second.

[Tyler Bancroft]

That’s too bad Tyler. It seems unusual that it would have functionality issues as they advertise otherwise. I received my skew rabbet plane and medium shoulder plane yesterday. I could not determine what made them a second.

No harm, no foul. LV has the best customer service of any company I've ever dealt with – and this is the first of the many seconds I've bought that had any issues. Veritas tools are still the best available, IMHO.

[Rob Lee]

No harm, no foul. LV has the best customer service of any company I've ever dealt with – and this is the first of the many seconds I've bought that had any issues. Veritas tools are still the best available, IMHO.

Hi Tyler,

Sorry about that…sounds for sure like we goofed. No worries, we’ll put it right for you. Not sure how that would have happened, but I do know it was a huge effort close to the start of the sale to get the custom planes done….

Cheers,

Rob

[Doug Weiner]

I do have a complaint about the two planes and two dovetail saws I purchased. I am unable to find the ‘manufacturing issue’ with any of them. . LV has one very high standard of excellence. If these are seconds.

[Tyler Bancroft]

Hi Tyler,

Sorry about that…sounds for sure like we goofed. No worries, we’ll put it right for you. Not sure how that would have happened, but I do know it was a huge effort close to the start of the sale to get the custom planes done….

Cheers,

Rob

No worries, Rob! I appreciate that you have the seconds sale every year. My workshop's a fair sight better equipped because of it. Cheers.

[Jim Koepke]

I do have a complaint about the two planes and two dovetail saws I purchased. I am unable to find the ‘manufacturing issue’ with any of them. . LV has one very high standard of excellence. If these are seconds.

When the standards are high it is easy to reject something us mere mortals might never notice. Then again there are some folks who would complain about a stray speck of dust.

jtk

[Tyler Bancroft]

I do have a complaint about the two planes and two dovetail saws I purchased. I am unable to find the ‘manufacturing issue’ with any of them. . LV has one very high standard of excellence. If these are seconds.

I have only ever discovered the "defect" on one other Veritas second – and it was after three years of regular use, and only because I had completely disassembled the tool to do a deep cleaning and lubrication. I do wish more companies would have Lee Valley's quality standards. They put most other manufacturers to shame.

[Jason White]

Got my new 4-1/2 custom smoother from the Veritas seconds sale yesterday. I must say, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it and it cuts just beautifully!

[Chris Fairbanks]

I got my 3 planes today and I don’t know what defects they had as the quality looks to be the same as the new ones I have purchased in the past.

[Rob Lee]

Hi,

Cosmetic defects include pinhole voids on ground surfaces, casting porosity, or irregular transitions from ground to cast surfaces.

There are also some out of tolerance cosmetic defects….like wing thickness of bench planes. (One side visually different from the other).

The defects can be tough to spot…..

Cheers,

Rob

[Christopher Charles]

I had a #4 and #7 arrive last week (thanks Rob!) and I was able to find a few pinhole pits on one body and a wee scrap on the corner of the other. I would not have noticed either if I hadn't gone looking.

After 30 minutes of honing and tuning the chipbreakers, there was only the sweet sound of flying fluffy shavings.

[Brandon Speaks]

The sale is not still on is it?

[Jim Koepke]

The sale is not still on is it?

No, it is not. If you are not already on the Lee Valley email list it might be a good time to join.

jtk

[Jason White]

Agreed. Before this year I never knew Lee Valley had a seconds sale. I'll be back next year!


No, it is not. If you are not already on the Lee Valley email list it might be a good time to join.

jtk