Official Luthiers Forum!

]I wish this Stew Mac overpricing thing could be put to bed. It's ridiculous.

I hate to dignify the argument by engaging in discussion, but I ask, where is all the excess money they receive? Gold shower curtains and yachts for Stew Mac employees? I don't know anyone there but am certain a walk in any of their shoes would hardly reveal a life of excess. This in a time when true price gouging, fraud, robber barons, etc. certainly exists.



[quote=good example might be the collection of cheap Harbor Freight bar clamps I have...about 1/8th the cost of my Bessey clamps...yep, they're cheap and I've stripped a couple of them over the years, but considering at one point I needed about 30 more clamps than the 20 Bessey's I owned at that point, the savings was astronomical..[/quote]

This illustrates the common but simplistic concept of low price as king. We have bought into the notion that if the savings are astronomical, that's all that needs to be said. There were times when I worked as a carpenter that a huge number of clamps we required temporarily. We would have to round up the clamps of other trades, friends, competitors, etc. There were side benefits to this co-operation that are not reflected in the price of a clamp. Dare I say it made the construction of a building more, not less, efficient? The fact that these benefits can't be quantified with numbers has plowed them (and many bad clamps) into the economic landfill along with many other truths.

Mike They're not the same but it could be done with a cutoff wheel, a drill press and a tap. Or, if you have a lathe just pop the roll pin and have at it.

So I agree the Jaws II is not as smooth as a Bessey but I've certainly seen worse clamps. After I get through with Hesh and David's class I'll decide whether or not mine needs to be modified or if it is sufficient to the purpose.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The advantage Jaws 2 has over the vice grip version is it can press all frets. The Jaws 1 still requires another method for installing the frets over the heel and body.

Understood, David, but I'm doing bolt-on necks and bolt-on FB extensions. Level the FB with the neck bolted to the body, and then removed to fret. Only a couple of frets over the heel need to be installed by other means.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

So I've had this Jaws II just sitting in a bag until I take it to Ann Arbor next month but pulled it out because of this discussion. The only thing I can see wrong with it is that the threads are not cut as well as I'd like otherwise it looks pretty good. I took it apart and cleaned a fair amount of gunk out of the cast iron part. That helped some. Then I noticed that if I turned the screw in between my fingers it felt pretty rough so I stoned the outside of the threads smooth. That helped more. We'll see but I think I can live with it for now. StewMac just needs to improve the quality on the threads, IMO.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

This thread has come with burdens of responsibility I didn't anticipate.
First I stuck my foot in my mouth with Appalachian Americans. Next I was probably too hard on Stew Mac. Now my biggest concern of all:

SAFETY!
I'm concerned I'm sending waves of folks to their drill presses to drive file tangs into their bodies. BE CAREFUL! filing as I've shown is a bit like initiating a cut into a shaper or router bit without a starting pin. You have to be moving forward when you make contact. If you have a uncomfortable feeling about it, LISTEN TO THE FEELING!. It's often the last warning you get.

actually not...I in no way inferred that low price was king, in fact I made the statement that 99% of the time I prefer to pay the price for quality...

in actuality those Harbor Freight clamps are pretty nice for many uses...and of the estimated 30 I bought 8 years ago only 2 got thrashed...

do they compare with my Bessey's?...for simple light clamping, sure...for applying massive amounts of force, not even...

is it "simplistic" to realize that 30 Bessey clamps at that point would have cost about $700, whereas the ones I got (on heavy sale) ran me less than $100? I guess it is...only a motard wouldn't be able to do that simple math...

that avatar of mine...when I glued up the 4 layers of bent walnut into the 21' long blank that got shaped into the handrail I used every single clamp I own, plus about 20 of my employer's...as alluded to earlier, the cheapos hold just fine, they just don't suck things together nearly as well...

sure, sharing is just fine and dandy, but how many 'friends' does it take to gather around 100 clamps at a single time?

please be aware that this post is being made in clarification of my views on 'price is king'...I work with woods for a living and have high expectations of the tools I need use to make my living...unfortunately in current times it's becoming very difficult to find mid-range tools that actually last, because of the whole concept of 'price is king'...e.g. the majority of demand for these tools are from weekend warriors who will never understand the differences...and by making that statement I do realize the contradiction in terms of my willingness to pay for quality...I use decent/good tools and very rarely have a desire to pay the big bucks for Festool and the like...thank goodness most of my tools are from an earlier era as they are still chugging along

What I hope hasn't gotten lost is the press works as is. It just fell short of my expectations and desires. I posted my fix because I was excited to share a fix that doesn't require a metal lathe or a trip to a machine shop.

sigh...the world is way to politically correct these days...if people can't take the use of terms that are meant to be fairly humorous, then that's just sad...current generations of candy butts looking for any chance to impugn another because of their hurt feelings...

let's take these supposed derogatory terms and flip them around...to me what they oftimes mean is that a certain set of people did what was needed to get the job done with what they had available...e.g. it's actually a compliment on their ingenuity to pull off something with limited means!

Don't worry about us Appalachian Americans, we're tough and it sure didn't bother this one. We have a habit of getting done what needs to get done with whatever is laying around. My great granddaddy wanted a fiddle but couldn't afford one so he made one. Story is a lot of it was done with a pocket knife. Finish is ...... shoe polish

David - I like your fix and if I am not happy using the tool that will be my next step.

Edit: here's the fiddle and bow he made. I have no doubt the bow had horsehair on it originally. Made in the early '30's. Still solid. Tailpiece is probably not original. Sometime in the next few years I plan to restore it and find a good fiddler to play it for me.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

You poor guys, I'm sitting here w/a raging head cold. Not wanting to try and keep excess mucus off of customers instruments, I've got nothing else to do.


Steve, that violin is great. I've had a surprising number of "Granddad built" violins come across my bench. Few things are as inspiring. What? no LMI kit?

Mike, There is plenty of language that doesn't offend anyone. What's the down side to using it instead? I thought that was kindness.
When it was pointed out my thread subtitle could be offensive to some, I realized it was a derogatory term. I have no interest in being offensive and tried to change it. I find the current backlash against "political correctness" depressing. Frightening even.

I think we just see the value of cheap clamps differently. I've got my own collection of them in the corner. There are some in almost every shop I've been in. The one's that get used last, if at all. Every time I look at them I see money misspent not saved. Many times I've thought about just putting them all in a box and getting rid of them. Just to get rid of the bad taste they leave in my mouth.
Everytime you bring a joint closed with a Bessey and then switch to a cheapi for the holding, they are costing you. If you had to figure in the labor of a job clamping some portion of the work twice, they might not look so inexpensive. And that's just one example of hidden costs in them.

ahhh....well I don't use lots of clamps very often...most times I get by with my 2' quick grip clamps (current generation Irwin's are junk...the DeWalt version beats them hands down) of which I have a total of 7...

but when I do have a call for using every clamp I own, I greatly appreciate the cheap ones...they weigh far less, and many times do the job nicely...the big flaw in my operation is that I'm an in the field carpenter, and that means no jointer...and that means lots of clamps all over the place to hold glue ups in place overnight...that being said, sure, lots of Bessey's would be grand...but think of how much weight it would entail to have a 10' long glue up requiring about 12 clamps to hold together, then lift off work table to move and make room for the next glue up? it's bad enough using 2x the number of light cheapos...

anyway, as you might have noticed, I won't back down on this concept...been doing this for 3 decades and have learned, if nothing else, each tool has it's own use and limitations...I'm not rich...never have been...odds are quite (near certain) I never will be...when talking about the collection of around 60 clamps I own it means a lot to pinch pennies here and there to pay for other things in life (mortgage, utilities, clothes, health) and still get the job done...yeah, it's job...tools of the trade and all that...I'd rather spend $300 for my Occidental Leather 8580 set of bags every 7 years or so than save and have to replace yearly...common sense...I buy steel framing squares and adjust them at purchase...aluminum ones bend too easily...I use quality levels because accuracy is required at the level of work I perform (read that as: very rich clients and very demanding builders)...etc., et al...

point being, there is nothing wrong with making decisions on investments into one's tools and such...cost vs. benefit decision...and that is my choice, as it's my life and business...on the flip side I certainly don't like buying a tool with the impression it's quality only to find it's a piece of junk

anyway, survive your weekend with a head cold...just got past my yearly dealings with such scenarios (I'm guessing ash pollen)...suxors

Thanks for the photo. So you have to buy the whole thing just to get the caul?

O.K. for anyone still interested in this ramble I have another Idea, and in retrospect, it's what I should have done in the first place.

I have been pressing in frets for a decade with this Jorgensen clamp. It's smooth as silk and puts them in effortlessly. In fact, once I put a little paraffin on the threads and I had to clean it off because the threads would unwind under clamping pressure. They were too smooth.
The Jorgensen could be used un-modified. The ball end almost goes in the jaw2 shoe hole as is. If you remove the roll pin and put the shoe shaft in a drill press vice you could just enlarge the hole so the ball of the screw goes in.
Then a slightly larger, shallow hole, making a counter bore, would let a portion of the threads go in and you'd have it without modifying a clamp. A bonus is the Jorgensen has a clutch which might be more useful than the nylon thumbscrew. If Stew Mac sold a version like this it would serve amature and pro alike as it would just fit onto a good clamp many already have.

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Just a note to say thanks to all the folks involved in this thread. A diversity of opinions well rendered, and criticism gracefully offered, with nary a cross word.

How often do you run across that on the Internet?

Thank you all.

Steve

The road not taken

The Jorgensen threads measure .375"!
A common 3/8" counter bore with a 1/4" pilot could do this in minutes.

I took no offense, but perhaps the original thread was a bit coarse. I'm glad it's been polished up, and is turning smoothly. As a fellow William of the Highlands, I admired the techniques. I intend to incorporate them.

I'll add this:
Some candle wax on the threads gets you pretty close to Bessy.

Say what you like about Stew-Mac and whatever-- they have a lot of great sanders.

Folks I received a reply, a VERY thoughtful reply from Stew-Mac Yesterday, Easter Sunday! Jay at Stew-Mac wrote the reply and also gave me a view into just what they go through at Stew-Mac even to bring something as seemingly simple as binding tape to the market. I knew that folks could go to great lengths to carefully select offering but this story makes it clear just how important it is to Stew-Mac to provide us all, regardless of level of participation in the trade, with the utmost value at all times.

I asked Jay if I could post his reply and he graciously agreed.

Hello Hesh,

I hope all's well with you. We're good here in Athens, enjoying this ridiculous early Spring.

Thanks for sending the email to Dan regarding the Jaws II clamp. I'll get to that in a second - first I just wanted to say that I hope folks who have questions, concerns, problems with our products aren't intimidated to contact us directly about the issues. I realize forums are a nice way to get feedback from your peers, however we really like to know when something isn't working. As you know, we use the tools we design and make, we would like to be the first to know when something isn't living up to the demands of others.

We have Dan, Don Macrostie, Erick Coleman, Todd Sams, Matt Brooker and Dan Brooks working for us, they all have home shops for either building or repairing instruments. We're lucky to have this testing ground for our products, still, as you know, there's always room for improvement. Pplease don't hesitate to reach out to us when there's an issue just like you've done with this email.

Now, Jaws II....hmm, we just looked at our current clamp and the Bessey and while the Bessey is a bit tighter to the bar (doesn't wiggle back and forth as much) we don't see or feel much difference, certainly not what Dave is feeling which concerns me. I like to see his if that's possible. I can send him a new one so he can return his to us - will that work?

I would like to explain the clamp situation as we all have Bessey clamps in our shops (I'm including me in this, I'm not the guitar guy, build furniture and other stuff in my home shop). Dan's original Jaws II was indeed a Bessey clamp. He found it too sloppy so he installed the nylon adjusters to the clamp to tighten up the clamp for better control. We were having to grind the end of the bar to remove the clamp, drill and tap the holes for the adjuster, take the acme threaded area apart and turn it on a lathe to fit our fretting caul. As you can imagine this was a lot of work. We tried to get Bessey to help us with this but they don't do custom work. We ended up finding a clamp company that would do the work for us and supply what we thought was a very good clamp.

Obviously this helped keep the price point at what we feel is a good level for the quality of the tool. As you know from being in business, trying to match quality to the correct amount you charge for either a service or the product is a constant battle. We hope we do a good job with this. We could continue to supply the Bessey version and charge a lot extra however we feel the quality of the clamp we are getting and the lower price point is the better value....until your email showed up. Again I'd like to get Dave's back to see what's up. If there's a problem we will do what it takes to fix it.

On another forum topic that recently showed up....Binding Tape...how simple is that to sell? Well until the last 6 months it was great, we all loved the brown tape we sold and then without warning the supplier stopped making it. We're a little fish in the big pond of tools or supplies, we couldn't get them to produce it again. They had a replacement...okay, it's not bad but not as good as what we had but we had no choice as the other was gone. We then noticed, as others did, that it really wasn't as good which caused the great binding tape hunt - other brown tape, several types of green, blue, wait there's 3M from Canada and England...what's the difference? On and on for months....we even tried a brown tape that one or our purchasers noticed on a Donatos box! It wasn't bad but didn't make the cut.

We finally settled on the orange tape we are currently selling. We really like it....just hope they keep making it! It's as similar to the brown as we could find and again, our wood shop is our best customer of this tape as we use a lot of it in our wood shop, we like it and will continue to use and evaluate the tape.

I hope this long winded reply helps you understand who we are, I sometimes feel when reading the forums that folks think we're a corporate company producing items that we don't use....as far as I'm concerned (and this is my 40th year at Stewmac) nothing could be further from the truth. We use the products we sell and take pride in what we do just like our everyone on the forums does with the work they do.

Please let me know if you have any other questions. Again I'd like to see Daves clamp and I do hope he, you or anyone else comes and visits us, it's always fun to take an afternoon and visit a variety of Stewmac guitar shops in Athens.

All my best,

Jay
--
Jay Hostetler
Vice President Product Development
Stewart-Macdonald

http://www.stewmac.com

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Stew Mac are just flat out good folks.

Mike_P, if your going through Occidental leather bags every 7 years your working hard. Take care of yourself.
Mine are still hanging on a nail. I keep them just in case...... Looking at them also reminds me how good I have it when I'm in a T shirt, listening to music in my shop and it's snowing horizontally outside.

Those Occidentals are nice bags - my old bags are in drawer with my skill saw, I use em occasionally. They got a lot of their wear in Durango in the late 70's/early 80's- small world.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks for sending their response, Hesh. I'm going to hold off on modifying mine, but I'll be interested to hear if you get any feedback from them on the one Dave sends in. Thanks for following up with SM!

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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Brad my friend and everyone else there is a small misunderstanding between Stew-Mac and us in that we are not the David that has one to send back. I suspect that Jay may be confusing David F. for David C.

Anyway I'm off today and an hour from our shop so I will sort this out tomorrow and let folks know anything that I learn that can help us all out and Stew-Mac as well.

Just wanted to mention that the level of attention to this matter at Stew-Mac is exactly what we would hope for and really stands out in terms of superb support and client service. Stew-Mac has also been a sponsor of the OLF since very early on and as such has been key in keeping the lights on for us all at the OLF for many years now.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Thanks Hesh, I wasn't sure either. Regardless, I'll pop mine in the mail to them. I'm sure it's representative of the ones that are rough, even though I spent some time smoothing the threads.

[quote="They got a lot of their wear in Durango in the late 70's/early 80's- small world.[/quote]


No Kidding Steve. I didn't get here from the front range until 92' but wouldn't be surprised if we still knew a couple of the same names.
If you haven't been back in awhile, it's changed quite a bit. It can be a tough place to make a living but I've been around the world and find it hard to top. I need my wilderness close at hand.
If you ever come back through your welcome to come by.

Thanks Dave - I hope I get a chance to come through at some point and if I do I'll take you up on your offer.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Looking at the image of the caul holders it might be possible to make a simple fitting that would allow the drill press type to be attached to a bessey type clamp. Then the user would have the option of using it in a press (for new work) or as a Jaws 2 type tool if attached to a clamp (of their choice).

As a self proclaimed Hillbilly Walmart amateur type luthier there have been many instances when I have built or modified tools to suit a given purpose. If it is a "one off", half of the fun is in doing it - time is not of the essence. To do a small production run would not be nearly as much fun, and the cost might exceed the value to most people. In another thread there is a discussion of making a set of cauls for the holder at a price point roughly twice what Stew Mac sells them for per caul. More sizes, and I assume a smaller production run - a fair price for those who want them, but it does make the Stew mac set seem a bargain.
One thing not mentioned in the modified tool was the lack of the nylon adjuster on the Stew Mac version. Not having used either tool I don't know how important that is, but it does add to the cost of making.
On a side note, I have noticed the fit and finish of the "offshore knock off" clamps has improved considerably. This does make ponying up for ponys a little tougher.