I know there are lots of Hammer customers here, so wanted to share some news from Felder KG:

-Lead times continue to be a challenge but I found this very interesting: Austria hired something like 100 more workers for the production line, specifically for Hammer machines. Believe this or not, Felder broke all sales records for Hammer machines (A3's, in particular). So, "yes", desite the pandemic, we outsold any previous year. Most of that was to mainland Europe. Folks are stuck at home so what do they do? Their hobbies.

-Most of the lead times we are seeing here in the US are not because of anything internal. Felder has the personnel. The issue is the raw materials such as plate steel, fasteners, electrical components, etc. I don't need to explain to anyone how hard-hit Europe has been but that is the real bottleneck for us.

-THERE WILL BE A PRICE INCREASE ON MARCH 1st. All the promo pricing that appears on the E-shop (or open quotes if you have one) will be nullified and new pricing goes into effect. The factory has been holding off for as long as possible on raising retail prices but it's unavoidable due to continuing logistics and raw material cost increases to us. If you are on the fence about any Hammer machine, I would strongly suggest finalizing something with your rep before the end of this month. I have creative solutions for helping customers with stuff like this, as I imagine our other US reps do, but those conversations need to be settled before the end of this month if you want to avoid the price increase.

On a more positive note, I am told that they are adding some new machines to the Hammer lineup this year. Not sure what but the new HS950 sander has been a huge hit, so I'm optimistic it will be something with same performance/value proposition. Also, I'm told that a new E-shop platform is in the works. This is very exciting, since using the current version is like the "netscape navigator" of online shopping experiences. Not sure when but that's definitely something to look forward to.

Erik