What's with Premier Tool Brands

[David Justice]

I have ordered from 3 premier tool company's in the past 4 months and still don't have anything in hand.

1st company had a lead time, but got an email that they were 2 months behind.

2nd didn't say anything about long lead times, but after hearing nothing from them for about 3 weeks after ordering, I called and asked and was told it would be another 2 weeks, then got an email about a week later telling me it would be another 6 weeks.

3rd company also said nothing about lead times, but sent an email after I ordered telling me it would be 6 weeks before it would be delivered.

Lee Valley is the only one I looked at that actually tells you if it's in stock or not, but of all of their hand planes, they have only 4 in stock. I checked.

Not too upset about this, but it does seems excessive.

So, does anyone know what the deal is? Do they make them to order? Bad at forecasting sales? Or do they do this just to make their product seem more desirable?

[Simon MacGowen]

So, does anyone know what the deal is? Do they make them to order? Bad at forecasting sales? Or do they do this just to make their product seem for desirable?

For Lee Valley, no one other than Rob could give a better answer to your observations.If I had to venture an answer for what we are seeing here, it is NONE of the above (unless the seller is a made-to-order business). My guess is the sellers, the magazines, the shows (Fine Woodworking, WIA), the social media, the marketing and advertising and the forums have been successful in making woodworkers look for premium tools and products. It is their total efforts over the last 10 years or more that are now bearing fruits finally. Exciting time for both sellers and consumers (especially those who can afford them or want to upgrade their tools). The hobbyists are driving the sales.

Simon

[David Bassett]

... So, does anyone know what the deal is? ....

There can be many reasons. I think many small companies run tools in batches and if something blows up their forecasting, it can take a long time to recover. In situations where the tools are imported for sale, you add in time for collecting a significant order before shipping to minimize that cost. In cases where the manufacturer has the first issue, e.g. Japanese smiths or small foundries, and the vendor has the second, the problems compound.

In the specific case of LV, you can search here. Rob Lee addressed the production problems with the planes (around April 1st, when ask why they didn't do an April Fool's tool this year.) Their scheduling got blown up by unanticipated changes to CITES and the need to hastily change their handles. The replacement was causing them trouble scaling from prototype to production and he said it was all hands on deck. (I think he said they had over 4K planes sitting ready waiting on handles, so they should start flowing out in big batches once they have a supply of handles that meets their quality standards.)

[John C Cox]

It's a good sign that the economy is picking up.... People are busy all the way around... But so many owners are gun-shy due to the recession - so they tend to be very slow adding additional capacity unless they can completely cash-flow it....

Remember that with many small companies - the way they can produce quality product at a reasonable price is low overhead.... And that means they put available resources into making and shipping stuff - not overhead functions.... As such - they often don't have any 2nd or 3rd tier suppliers developed they can source stuff from when delays happen... And so the owner has to be the one who qualifies a new vendor or coordiates prototyping and development of new product....

Or... Maybe they don't have any engineers/project managers - so The owner or production manager has to be the one to do all the honcho work on an expansion project... And that sucks a ton of time away from his existing duties..

All that stuff is easy when business is slow.... Not so easy when it's crazy and you are just barely keeping your eyeballs above water....

[Steve Eure]

You have to remember that many foundries here in the states have been shut down for one reason or another, ie. government regs, labor cost, etc. Many companies have outsourced their products to China. Now with the looming trade wars (talks) prices have gone up. Another kink is that many Chinese foundries have shut down for environmental reasons brought on by other countries belly aching about China's emissions. So now with fewer foundries, the ones who are still compliant have a steady back log of business. I don't think many people saw this one coming.
Hopefully if the American steel mills reopen it will relieve some of the burden, but prices will definitely be higher of reasons mentioned in the first paragraph. And there's still that wait time.

[Chet R Parks]

Rob Lee can speak for himself but on 4-7-18 he wrote:
Hi,

We’re currently experiencing a production issue with wood parts (ironically). Since we’ve brought all handles in-house, we’ve been challenged to catch up with orders, let alone get ahead. We have stopped actively marketing many of the products, and expect to have our act together soon. New equipment has been ordered/installed, and we are looking at a second shift to catch up. We have more than 1000 finished planes waiting for handles...

It has been a challenge to convert to a torrefied wood, and we did not anticipate how steep and how long the learning curve was.

Please accept my apologies for the delays - we have good people working hard to get out of a sticky situation.

Rob Lee
Lee Valley and Veritas

[Mike Brady]

Small specialty tool makers have always had delivery / production problems due to being one-man-shows. Most eventually do deliver their goods but production schedules are often overly optimistic. Sadly there also have been some cases where customer deposits were taken and no goods were delivered due to cash flow problems. I would be wary of a maker that asks for an order deposit unless your payment method offers some kind of recourse.

You didn't mention any particular makers, but I would guess they are solid operations that just have a backlog of orders and most likely, always do. Talk to them and tell them if you are unhappy. Their reaction to that should give you a indication of their character.

I heard a story from a woodworker who had ordered a set of hollows and rounds molding planes and waited so long that he had completely forgotten about them. They also had gone up considerably in cost during the long wait, but he got them at the original price, which probably was a net loss to the maker.

[Steve Kaminska]

I've dealt with large companies that sit on a certain production run until they have maybe 800 orders and then they run a batch of 1000 pieces. They do this because running less than 1000 at a time actually costs them more, and they know there is sufficient interest in the product, lessening the probability of unsold inventory sitting around.

[John C Cox]

But the other side is that the small "boutique" shops just simply don't have the sway of the Stanley Black and Decker's or Apex tool groups of the world with specialty steel mills... Those guys buy so much specialty alloy that they can get a mill to run off a short run of something odd/custom because they are already buying 500+ tons of tool steel a month..

Vs in Ye Olde Days - small crucible steel makers would easily run off a ton or a few crucibles (80# each) of whatever special science project material you wanted... Sure - it may not be quite as consistent as buying a whole 100 ton furnace run out of a big boy... But a local tool shop running off a batch of chisels could get it....

And so for example - LN and LV had to basically go with commercially available high quality knife/tool steel alloys rather than being able to buy something custom that requires a 100 or 200 ton minimum mill run... Like say LN wanted to make a run of chisels starting with cold drawn 1.3%C W1 steel to try to duplicate old quality cast steel chisels or some sort of 1.2-1.3% C oil hardening low alloy steel to duplicate old Marples or whatever.... It's not a common commercial alloy...

You can probably get a small run if you poke around in China... But that may be more trouble than it's worth and may also not really further your case that it's a quality boutique product...