Stainless steel rifflers from Lee Valley

[aldav]

Yep, they're cheap alright. But, why would you advertise tools like this as made of stainless steel? With the hardness Lee Valley state they must be a ferritic stainless, possibly with as little as 10% chrome. I can't imagine these being 'corrosion resistant' to any extent. They would be much better described as 'chrome steel' or chrome and any other mineral/metal that is part of the steel.

[hiroller]

As well as the Auriou set that Stewie linked to, TFWW also sell a set of stainless rifflers that are made in Pakistan like their other Gramercy rasps.
https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/...item/MS-RRSET3
I have a set of these and they seem as well made as the other Gramercy rasps that I have.
Are they as good a Auriou or Liogier? Don't know. But they work and they haven't gone rusty!
As for the economics of the price, you'd have to ask Rob Lee.
But seeing as they are a limited time item, I'd say they have been picked up by LV as a job lot that doesn't represent the true cost.
These are being passed on to us a price to encourage us to buy something else at the same time ...

[hiroller]

As for price and profit, the Rim Roller, a gadget used to slice open the edge of a paper coffee cup to reveal a prize makes more revenue for Lee Valley than their best selling plane according to Rob Lee. It's not an expensive item.
http://www.leevalley.com/us/gifts/pa...,56683&p=56683
See quote from Rob here:
http://norsewoodsmith.com/content/st...ium-handplanes

[Robson Valley]

+1 IanW Rifflers are a carver's weapon. They are little. I find I use them to even out gouge marks over curves
AND to avoid using any sandpapers. After the third gouge repair, it finally dawned on me that rifflers (and rasps) would allow me to
second-guess parts of carvings with more knife/gouge/adze work. Bigger pieces, furniture work, and I'd bite the bullet for Ariou.

I have several pairs of crooked knives made with some sort of stainless steel. For fine work in moderately hard woods
such as birch (Betula papyrifera), they hold an edge for about as long as anything else (30 minutes steady use between honings).
Once again, they're carving tools. I'd want something better for furniture work with such broad surfaces.

At the end of the day, they are not finishing tools at all.

[Enfield Guy]

Well, I got them today. Made in Pakistan they is. Typical plastic sleeve type storage. Look good feel sharp and not too coarse. I will give them a run tomorrow and see how they go.

I often use rifflers on some of the small jewellery pieces I do, so yes mainly on carved work.

Cheers
Bevan

[D.W.]

I'm sure they will be fine. The saw handle maker's rasps hold up well, and joel has attested that as they wear (in testing where they used a machine to put them through a million strokes or something), they actually cut faster.

Not sure what the fascination is with stainless in paki, but maybe they are easier to harden. it is sort of a side benefit that they are reasonably usable but won't rust.

[planemaker]

The Auriou rifflers cost almost ten times as much as these from Lee Valley.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...24,53823,53809

So confused...

The Rifflers being sold by Lee Valley are made in Pakistan. Have a look at their labor costs.

http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/...heapest-labor/

[D.W.]

I see that lee valley is out of them at this point (no clue if they have more). A quick search for stainless steel rifflers shows what look like the same thing in a set of 8 for 36 quid in the UK, but they're not shippable to the US. (roughly converts to the same price per riffler, though)

If they're being made in any quantity, I'm sure they can be found somewhere even if they disappear from LV's page.

There are a lot of people who could make use of $30-$60 of good quality rifflers, but who couldn't make any sense of the expensive rasps and rifflers. I'm included in that, I guess. I have no auriou or liogier rasps and couldn't see how they would make any difference in my planemaking (though they'd really make my wallet a lot lighter). The saw handle rasp from gramercy is the most expensive rasp I have, and the LV sparse tooth hand cut inexpensive rasps and a discount nicholson 50 are the only other ones I've got. The total cost was about the same as one auriou rasp. Those things just don't make great sense for the average hobbyist, and I'd imagine gobs of tool show attendees buy a set of them because a blogger tells them to, and then never make anything of note with them.

[IanW]

......Those things just don't make great sense for the average hobbyist, and I'd imagine gobs of tool show attendees buy a set of them because a blogger tells them to, and then never make anything of note with them....

I think you're being a little bit harsh, D.W. While I would agree with you that there is an awful lot of hype about fancy tools, I think some, at least, of the hand-stitched rasps are possibly worth the money. My advice would be the same as for any tool, don't rush out & buy a 'set' of anything just because some blogger says they are magic. Buy only what you need, & pay a premium only if you are pretty sure you are getting something extra (apart from the brand-name!). I can't speak for Aurious as I've never used one, but I have a few Liogiers, which are probably equivalent. I have a couple of the Liogiers 'copies' of the Nicholson pattern makers' and I love 'em for handle-making, because they are light & easy to use one-handed (while I hold the handle in my other hand), and the shallow curvature of the back suits most of the curves involved. The one which cuts as fast as the 'original' is a 9 grain, which is a much finer tooth & consequently leaves a better surface. That alone was worth a bit extra to me, and it's looking like they are more durable (I've worn out a few 49s over the last 30 years!), but can't confirm that yet. Mine are about a year old, and still cutting like new, so they're looking pretty good (mine are 'regulars' not the premium 'saphires'). If they go 50% longer than the original 49s, they'll have cost me about the same, but are a better tool, so I won't complain.....

As to how suitable such things are for the 'average hobbyist', that's a very hard call. If by 'average' you mean someone who won't use the tool much, then it may not make sense from a strictly economic view. We get back to the endless debate about what is reasonable for a hobbyist to spend & really, that pretty much boils down to disposable income & personal choice (& what you can slip by the Minister for War, Finance & Domestic Harmony).

Cheers,

[D.W.]

I don't see the 49s and 50s as very good choices for a toolmaker and thus rarely use mine. They also have teeth that wear and dull, vs. the taller thinner profile of hand stitched teeth that are more like spires and less like cups. I like hand stitched better, but I have third world hand stitched, of course.

I don't know how many various handles I've made, probably between 50 and 75. I do like the saw handle maker's rasp, and it is the only hand stitched rasp I wouldn't want to be without. The LV sparse tooth hand stitched rasps are nice because they're inexpensive and they cut fast, but they are an odd profile.

I supplement them with simonds double cut files, two nicholson shear cuts that I found very cheaply, and that's about it.

I think there are a few people who can make sense of buying a fair number of rasps of the $100+ type. People who make a lot of cabriole legs (though I'll bet even a lot of them do their bulk work with cheap tools), and professional toolmakers. Though a professional toolmaker will go no faster and do no finer work if they just have one decent saw handle rasp.

That's just my opinion I guess. I supported a lot of tool welfare, but the rasps never made much sense to me. Especially not when the average person buying them is making bookshelves and a few dovetail boxes.

(I'd call the average hobbyist someone who makes five or 6 decent pieces a year, does all but dovetails and smoothing maybe with power tools, etc, but who may be very enthusiastic about hand tools just because they're interesting to tinker with).

[planemaker]

http://www.classicrifflers.com/Riffl...ing-Video.html

[D.W.]

I am sometimes confused by stuff that comes talking about liogiers rasps. That site has some interesting information on it for folks outside of France (we don't know much about france in the US, other than the WWII jokes about planting trees in wwI so the Germans could return in the shade, etc).

But the site seems like it's an intentionally designed funnel. At the same time, when I read auriou's page, there is some of the same machismo in it "we are the only...", etc. Maybe that's just the nature of the language, competitive and somewhat boastful, etc.

[Luke Maddux]

I'd call the average hobbyist someone who makes five or 6 decent pieces a year...

I don't fall into the rest of your definition, but this is definitely where I'm at as far as furniture pieces per year. If I could just find a way to sell everything I made that number would increase drastically but, unfortunately, I have to make (expletive expletive expletive) cutting boards in order to pay for the hobby in between so that I can be creative with the cabinetmaking side of things that I enjoy.

Imagine that... the easiest thing to sell is a board that's been made into a board.

Anyway, ranting aside, I too am interested in the difference between Liogier and Auriou rasps. It seems that Liogier is more focused on made-to-order stuff whereas Auriou has a smaller range and is more focused on stocking their suppliers. I'm sure you would have a similar experience whether you emailed one or the other asking for the same items.

I'm an American living in Australia, where Liogier seems to be king, but I expect I'll be the odd man out when I get my Liogier rasps back to the States some day. Just a matter of which market developed where it seems.

[Colin62]

Maybe that's just the nature of the language, competitive and somewhat boastful, etc.

Isn't most marteting competitive and somewhat boastful? And aren't many nations seen that way by others looking in and seeing a bit of national pride from a different perspective?

[D.W.]

And aren't many nations seen that way by others looking in and seeing a bit of national pride from a different perspective?

Most definitely. The marketing sentiment is the same, it's how it's presented through the language that makes it unique.

I grew up in a civil war town in the united states. The french people back then (30 years ago) were the toughest to get along with, but what I didn't understand as a kid around town and then working in businesses catering to tourists is that it wasn't just "french people are arrogant" (which is what we thought), it's just how they communicate and what is tolerable to them that is a bit too direct for americans.

If I'm going to generalize:
* the french people were pushy and borderline offensive
* many of the english people were nice, but they often come across as know-it-alls. They also admonish americans about not being more interested in the rest of the world - did then and still do now.
* many of the americans (that made up the most of the folks) just wanted to come out and buy some trinkety garbage and not think too hard
* the germans always seemed to be looking a layer deeper in terms of technical issues and ask what and why more often
* we didn't get a lot of asian tourists (this is the 1980s, mind you), but when we did, they had cameras in tow and used them a lot. Especially japanese tourists.

How's that for generalizing!!

And for the grand generalization that everyone likes to make about us americans, the americans were the fattest of the bunch. Not so much 25 years ago, but now for certain.

I don't remember seeing too many aussies over here, though, uncommon to meet anyone from oz or nz.

Oh, Canadians, there are those ,too. A conversation with Canadians had subtlety that went like this:
* (canadian) let me tell you subtly why everything about canada is better than the united states
* (american) there are other countries other than the united states? where's canada?