Delighted to report that Tony Marples has kindly sent some larger wedges which would have solved the problem if I had not already fixed it......Will post my modification soon when current short courses are done.

Good customer service is most praiseworthy.

I am surprised at the lack of comment to the post. Has no one else experienced this problem?

David

Hello David,

There’s two ways of looking at this:

1, for less than £10 what should we expect? Well at the Heart Inn I’d get 4 pints of Otter Ale and be quite happy. Owning this cutting gauge clearly is not a happy experience so we should expect more than we are currently getting for our money.

2, Mr. Marples, you be ashamed of yourself selling such poor quality tools. Okay you replaced David’s faulty wedge but. What about everyone else who get you their cash, are you going to recall the product? These gauges are clearly not of good quality, fit for the purpose they are sold for. Hmm does this sound like a breach of the Sales of Good Act?

Either way David, without completing the manufacturing process on behalf of these manufactures their wares are clearly unfit for the purpose they are sold for and this poor performance appears to be rife.

Regards

Jake Sale

P.S. And please don’t started me on the flatness of Clifton Planes, yesterday at Westonbirt - Festival Of The Tree I had Mick Hudson from Clifton Planes trying to tell me his planes are as flat as Lie-Nielsen, Hmm, I think not.

Jake,

Thank you. I have been amazed and infuriated by the crude manufacture of so many woodworking tools for over 30 years.

Today we seem to be in a golden age of small specialist producers, if one can afford them, but the traditional tat continues to frustrate the unwary beginner who tends to believe it must be his fault instead of the tool's.

All I can say is that I know Mike Hudson is doing the best job he can with the equipment and resources he is given. There have been many improvements since I was sent the first ones to test.

best wishes,
David

Hi Jake, Hi David,

Good to see we all survived the pints of Otter Ale at the Hart Inn.

I don't think there is a problem with making tools available cheaply. It provides for a more diverse market place and a wider choice for the purchaser.

Look at Robert who turned his £25 No6 Stanley plane from as a piece of junk into a finely tuned handtool. OK, he will need a new lever cap, and those plastic handles are atrocious, but other than that, the tool is working fine, and it cost him very little money. The problem, as we discussed last week, is really in the marketing, rather than in the products themselves.

For £10 i don't expect a very good marking gauge, but I would expect the seller / manufacturer to admit that it will need some work to make it perform. This is a big issue and I have had my fair share of products that just weren't ready to use and which were subsequently left unused, while I was blaming my ignorance, lack of experience or lack of woodwork education for the poor result I had achieved.

If proper information was available we could all make an informed decision and some will still buy cheap tools (although the Marples marking gauge needed more work than anybody would be willing to invest in such a tool. More satisfaction is derived from building the tool from scratch completely, which can probably be done for a similar price and with a similar time investment).

Some would buy the Clifton planes, do some work and buy a proper cap rion, and others (I am thinking of Jake here) would buy the Lie Nielsen planes, and have less work to do before getting to planing wood. I am still thinking of building a metal plane like Holtey's No 98 from scratch. Something for everybody.

It's the misinformation that bothers me most.

Vincent,

Thank you. It is this lack of honest and reliable information that has exercised me for the last 35 years.

The subject arose today with a new student when we discovered that his £20 "straight" edge had a bump of between 7 & 8 thousandth's of an inch in its 500 mm length.

It is not sold with any tolerance and the small print states; N.B. These edges are not intended for high precision engineering work.

However the description also states;
"Ideal for checking flatness of timber, machine tables, cylinder heads etc."

It seems to me that these two statements are incompatible.

I will have to check with the vendor or manufacturer to see if any tolerance exists, but a "Straight" edge without a clear tolerance is of very little practical use.

My second dvd shows how easy it is to plane the edge of a 15" piece of timber, approximately one to two thou hollow, with a well tuned jack plane.

I choose to make it hollow as this is generally infinitely preferable to bumpy.

I had better stop now because the full rant would take most of the night!

Best wishes,
David Charlesworth

Hello chaps,

I think we are all agreeing here, we don’t expect the best quality marking gauge for £10 but we do expect it to more or less work. If you want perfection it will probably look like a Lie-Nielsen Tite Mark @ £75 unless of course you go for a Colen Clenton but that’s serious piece of kit.

I don’t believe I’m unrealistic, I’m not expecting a £40 Footprint No5 will be as true as a Lie-Nielsen no5 @£220 . And I would not even expect a Clifton No5 @£165 to stand up to the LN.

But I do expect to sold a product open and honestly. I mean tell me what I’m getting myself into; give me the option to spend a day tuning a tool. Don't ignor the limits of the product.

Although Vincent is probably right, I’ll make mine a LN!

All the Best
Jake Sale

i get very angry about the sale of cheap tat - often with words such as 'quality' on the box - to unsuspecting buyers. When I trained as a joiner to improver level in the sixties, no one as far as I know had done the kind of work David has, and I didn't realise just what awful tools I was using to earn my living. I do know that I decided after a short time that the trade wasnt' the place for me and retrained for another career. Now as a hobbyist, having devoured the books and DVDs currently available from Hartland, I'm working to completely different standards - I keep telling David he should offer correspondence courses!

I'm lucky - writing about woodworking for GMC has enabled me to afford fine tools just in time for my retirement when I'll have the time really to use them. So i spend minimal time tuning and get the tools straight to work - and I now know what a difference good tools can make. I wonder how many people, like me - even though 'professionally' trained - have blamed themselves and given up. Thank goodness I got a second chance - maybe if I'd met david in time I'd have stayed and made it in the wood trade.

Hi David

I did like your blog and the comments that have been written , I would like to add a point about Choosing a power tool before you buy

Before you finally commit yourself, do try and find the opportunity to actually try out as many models as possible.

This much easier these days, as many tool dealers and manufacturers host open days and shows, or offer specialist tuition courses where you can gain real hands on experience.

I guest this may preaching to the converted , but I always do this before any long term purchase of new tools