Thread: Fettling Junk

Originally Posted by t0M0

Quality costs money, it alway has and it always will.

I've used this example many times before, but once upon a time, I used to be an active shooting sports enthusiast. Around the year 2000, a small company called "HS America" imported a little Croatian made polymer pistol called the "HS2000".

It's cost? $249, or about 1/2 the price of a comparable Glock.

I purchased one on a lark and was absolutely floored over what a gem it was. Accuracy, reliability, ergonomics, all absolutely top shelf for a polymer duty sidearm.

The strangest thing happened, though. It was largely rejected. It seems that the gun buying public here in America just couldn't wrap their mind around the idea that a $249 pistol from a country without a long gunmaking tradition could possibly be worthwhile. After all, quality costs money, right?

Well, the people at Springfield Armory apparently had a marketing department that was on the ball. They secured the rights to the $249 Croatian wonderpistol, changed it's name to the snappier "X-Treme Duty" and, this is the important part, doubled its price.

Suddenly, it was setting the world on fire and everyone loved it.The same gun that was rejected at $249 and couldn't be given away was embraced at $550 and backordered for months. The only difference was a name change, and a price change. That price change so consumers could 'pay more and feel better' made all the difference.

So, yes, quality costs money, but marketers make their living by being considerably smarter than you. They know they can get the buying public to pay for imaginary factors that don't cost them anything to fabricate, don't add any value to the product itself but consumers can be tricked into believing make a big difference, either in actual performance or in 'image' - how they consumer believes he will be perceived by other hobbyists via owning their particular brand.

There comes a point where paying for diminishing returns just gets academic and stupid. The tool world is a case study in this phenomenon, but it exists in anything that has a high end market segment. Nothing wrong with the boutique makers, but their cost to performance ratio isn't favorable.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

I guess the market for tools ... ranges from the very serious genteman woodworker (although I do not know any )

I'm sure I know one or two

Originally Posted by MakingChips

I'm too much of an engineer to escape the cost/benefit rubric. It's just how I'm wired.
On this basis, I'm totally cool getting 95% of the way 'there' for $17, when the costs associated with getting 99% there are $80, and 100% is $379.

As the old Soviet saying goes... "Good enough is best".

you must work in a different branch of engineering to me
95% of the way 'there' translates to "will require total replacement after at best two winters"
99% of there translates to "will probably require renewal after 10 winters"
100% translates to "expected to last 30+ winters"

when site establishment and material placement costs represent >95% of the total project, near enough has a different meaning.

Originally Posted by ian

you must work in a different branch of engineering to me
95% of the way 'there' translates to "will require total replacement after at best two winters"
99% of there translates to "will probably require renewal after 10 winters"
100% translates to "expected to last 30+ winters"

when site establishment and material placement costs represent >95% of the total project, near enough has a different meaning.

I really don't see how you arrived at those conclusions.

Well, the people at Springfield Armory apparently had a marketing department that was on the ball. They secured the rights to the $249 Croatian wonderpistol, changed it's name to the snappier "X-Treme Duty" and, this is the important part, doubled its price.

This argument has absolutely no corelation to quality/boutique woodworking tools, these products are made by individuals and companies in first world countries paying thier workers a fair wage, using quality, often locally sourced materials and putting time, effort and above all else care into thier products.

Yes these products are still expensive but not because of marketing, its a fair price for a product that you only need to buy once and will often last more than a life time.

You cannot determine whether something is good , simply by the price. My two favourite planes cost me collectively $2. My jointer was given to my by a kind old man who no longer used it and my little block plane ( A bailey 110 I think) cost me two dollars at a garage sale. The little block pane was ugly and and unloved. (Like me I suppose). But with a bit of a fiddle it is lovely to use.

Originally Posted by t0M0

This argument has absolutely no corelation to quality/boutique woodworking tools, these products are made by individuals and companies in first world countries paying thier workers a fair wage, using quality, often locally sourced materials and putting time, effort and above all else care into thier products.

Now you've just completely changed the premise of the argument.
You're now affirming the moral case- about how 'fair wages', environmental issues, "locally sourced materials" etc are part of the desirability of a boutique product.

You're definitely entitled to have that as an opinion, but that means essentially nothing about determining the value of a working tool and is a completely different discussion than the one we're having about quality and cost. Believe it or not, a guy in China making $2.10 an hour can operate a mill just as well as one in Switzerland or Chicago making $21.00 an hour.

The HS2000 example is a bang-on example of a mindless consumer sentiment that associates price points with 'pride of ownership', exhibiting no capacity to discern actual quality from actual junk. This same phenomenon exists in tools, too, where a tool might be imported from a shop in India or China and is immediately dismissed as 'junk' by the same brand of idiot who rejected the HS2000 at $249, but loved the "XTreme Duty" at $549.

This is a large part of the reason why many lines of 'high end' imports don't even make it to US shores, while they're popular in some parts of Europe. Europeans are far more discerning and willing to assess the product, rather than judge it based solely on irrelevant, associative cues (nation of origin, price point, color, etc) that have no bearing on its actual quality.

I took the attitude that there are some 'tools' out there that are junk and that no amount of fettling would render them capable of doing a good workmanlike job.
Cheers,
Jim
ps in the case I mentioned, I followed a cue and that cue was the trade name

Originally Posted by MakingChips

...rather than judge it based solely on irrelevant, associative cues (nation of origin, price point, color, etc) that have no bearing on its actual quality.

Why do you consider associative cues such as "nation of origin" irrelevant? If I want to take a moral stand on "nation of origin" then "nation of origin" is not irrelevant - and it's not for you to tell me it is.

Cheers, Vann.

Originally Posted by MakingChips

...

The strangest thing happened, though. It was largely rejected. It seems that the gun buying public here in America just couldn't wrap their mind around the idea that a $249 pistol from a country without a long gunmaking tradition could possibly be worthwhile. After all, quality costs money, right?

Well... not quite. It was only on the market for a short period of time, and was still undergoing acceptance trials for the Croatian military.

Originally Posted by MakingChips

Well, the people at Springfield Armory apparently had a marketing department that was on the ball. They secured the rights to the $249 Croatian wonderpistol, changed it's name to the snappier "X-Treme Duty" and, this is the important part, doubled its price.

Again, not quite. Springfield made some minor changes and then released it with a rrp of $419.

Originally Posted by MakingChips

Suddenly, it was setting the world on fire and everyone loved it.The same gun that was rejected at $249 and couldn't be given away was embraced at $550 and backordered for months. The only difference was a name change, and a price change. That price change so consumers could 'pay more and feel better' made all the difference.

And again, not quite. There were minor modifications made for Springfield, as well as the name change so consider this 'value adding'. Also, by this time field tests by both the Croat military and American civilian orgs had been completed successful and reported in well distributed magazines. THEN, it started to take off.

I'd consider your analogy more correct if the Groz plane was imported and reworked by Carbatec to work 'out-of-the-box', and then rebadged for sale. (This happens A LOT with power equipment in the USA)

Cheers all
OG

Originally Posted by MakingChips

The HS2000 example is a bang-on example of a mindless consumer sentiment that associates price points with 'pride of ownership', exhibiting no capacity to discern actual quality from actual junk. This same phenomenon exists in tools, too, where a tool might be imported from a shop in India or China and is immediately dismissed as 'junk' by the same brand of idiot who rejected the HS2000 at $249, but loved the "XTreme Duty" at $549.

I can see you see it that way, but I disagree entirely. American gun buyers tend to know their stuff, and an unknown maker is, well, unknown. Springfield Armory is one of the largest and best known gun companies in America and them selling a product means something (as it should for Carbatec).

People will take a chance buying from SFA because they trust them and have faith they will back the product up. Once a product has shown its worth at a price point, then a commensurate level of sales should follow. I believe this is what is now happening with Wood River products, and I believe this is what has happened to Groz here in Australia (i.e. very low sales!).

Originally Posted by Old gunnie

Well... not quite. It was only on the market for a short period of time, and was still undergoing acceptance trials for the Croatian military.

Not quite.
I didn't need to know what the Croatian military thought about the gun before knowing quite quickly that it was tremendous. Perhaps that would've been influential on your decision-making process but it would've had precisely zero bearing on mine, nor a lot of others. Further, I was very present in the dialog about the gun on the internet at the time and there was very little consideration about what the Croatian military thought. It was more along the lines of large groups of borderline retards chanting "YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!!"

The price was doubled to accommodate that group, who promptly fell silent since they couldn't say anything negative about the gun on its merits.

Again, not quite. Springfield made some minor changes and then released it with a rrp of $419.

Not quite.
Street price for the rebranded "XTreme Duty" when they were first released (here in the US) was firmly double that of the same gun, called HS2000.

And again, not quite. There were minor modifications made for Springfield, as well as the name change so consider this 'value adding'.

The "modifications" made by Springfield were trivial, and there is nothing "value adding" about a name change. I'd suggest you re-examine your comprehension of what constitutes "value"/.

Originally Posted by Old gunnie

I can see you see it that way, but I disagree entirely. American gun buyers tend to know their stuff, and an unknown maker is, well, unknown. Springfield Armory is one of the largest and best known gun companies in America and them selling a product means something (as it should for Carbatec).

People will take a chance buying from SFA because they trust them and have faith they will back the product up. Once a product has shown its worth at a price point, then a commensurate level of sales should follow. I believe this is what is now happening with Wood River products, and I believe this is what has happened to Groz here in Australia (i.e. very low sales!)

This speaks precisely to my point.

Springfield Armory realized what a gem the gun was, as did everyone who bought it as the HS2000, or paid attention to anyone who owned an HS2000. The truth was out there. HS2000talk.com ran for quite some time. Whether or not one was receptive to the truth was dependent on whether or not they were a self-learner, or made their decisions on the basis of association.

The opportunity to buy it at $249 was there for anyone, but people tend to be very illogical about their consumer decisions and use associative cues rather than employ their non-existent capacity for reason, logic and objective decision making.

What Springfield Armory brought to the table was something called "marketing", which is shorthand for stepping in to fill the gap dumb people have when it comes to their ability to formulate an accurate opinion about a product. Marketing has nothing to do with the product in your hand but everything to do with providing a story about that product (which may or may not be true) that first persuades the consumer to buy it and secondly, allows them to feel good about their purchase.

The whole reason 'marketing' exists as a discipline is because manufacturers realize that when Western consumers buy a product, they're doing so for a whole host of unintelligent reasons that aren't always associated with the actual product itself. This isn't unique to American consumers, but we're definitely leaders of the pack, as far as this brand of idiocy goes... and yes, people caught up in this pitfall of logic will defend it.

As far as Groz planes selling in Aus, have you ever tried one?
If the Croatian military placed an order for them, would you feel more comfortable buying one?

I'll let the gun example go after this, but the following link indicates the rrp price of the Intrac HS2000 as of April 2001 was $419, which is the same price SFA was charging when it shut down the original website. Also rrp in the Firearm Review of Aug 2000, listed it at $399. See here,

HS America
FIREARM REVIEW

I see you bought it "on a lark" at $249, and after the fact saw it as a great buy. Would you feel the same at $399?

This thread is about fettling junk and I don't believe the HS2000 fits that category, but I'm certain their are some who believe the Groz planes do. The one (but yes, only one) I've tried nearly fell into that category. I'd put it with the 1999 model Stanley Bailey I've got. Compared to ALL the older model Stanleys I've got it's rubbish, and it sits on the shelf, unloved, unfettled, and un-used. The Groz I tried would have suffered the same fate. And yes, I have tried a Groz, same as I've tried (and sometimes own) Bedrocks, Baileys, L-Ns, Turners, Carters, Records, Mujifang, some Russian thing I can't remember the name of, a Marcou smoother (thanks Derek!) and various others.

Make no mistake though, I agree that cheaper does not mean rubbish. The Mujifang planes are a great example.

It seems you like the Groz, and I guess you've had good experience with it/them. Well, good, but others haven't, and our opinion is they aren't worth spending time trying to fettle . Better to get a good quality second hand Bailey or so, and tune that. Here in oz I do that with Turners, Falcon Popes and Carters. After some tuning some of the ones I've got are still rubbish, but some are good, and one is superb. All of my Bedrocks and older Baileys are at least good, and were all worthwhile purchases (so far at least).

You are right about marketing though. It certainly does have its impact, and that's were forums like these can be so helpful. We can discuss various products and there worth, and let others draw their own conclusions from our opinions, heavily caveated with the mighty "YMMV" .

Cheers All
OG