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The clamp that Stew Mac supplied with their jaws 2 was not good. Big, sloppy, and with threads that were not smooth despite my efforts to improve them.

Jaws 2 knock-off Bessey next to the real thing:

here is how I switched to the Bessey. It took me about 45 minutes.
Back out the screw until the swivel pad pops off. grid/file off the head of the cross pin. Punch out the pin. Remove the handle.



Chuck the screw in a drill press. clamp a file to something that will keep it square to the shaft as you take file strokes. It's not in the photo, but I clamped a piece of wood against the opposite side I was filing on to minimize deflection. Periodically I tapped it w/ a hammer to maintain contact as the shaft was reduced in size. The stew Mac shaft measured a flopy .243". Mine went into the hole in the shoe at .251"-.252" with no play. In the last .001" I used 600grit paper backed up to improve the finish from the file.

Next I set a file on a block and cut the grove for the retaining screw.






Voilà.

Good job!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

David you are an amazing guy! Thank You very, very much for this much appreciated!

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Oh yeah I wanted to let you know too since you contacted Stew-Mac I emailed Dan a couple of days ago and Dave called him. Dan was going into a product planning meeting and we wanted to arm him with a link to the OLF thread where folks are not pleased with the rasta imposter fake Bessey clamp so that Dan could detail the market perception to the Stew-mac folks.

I'll let you know if we hear of any progress on this front.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Nice, you beat me to it, I have a buddy with a lathe, and he's a real hillbilly

Fantastic Hesh. The best possible scenario is for Stew Mac to fix this tool back up. Thanks for using your influence. They would have returned my money but I would have spent the same 45minutes collecting all the cauls and things that came with it, boxing it up and getting it in the mail. And I still wouldn't have a press until they decided to sell a better version. I did send them a note encouraging them to go back to a good clamp.

Hopefully my solution might help someone in the same situation. Anyone who has a metal lathe could probably do this in less than 30min.

Sometimes,(not always!) the quickest thing is to just bust out a fix rather than Play e-mail tag, take trips to the post office, machine shop,etc.
Cheers.

One thing I forgot to mention. I used the shorter Bessey in the photo's because I had it. Depending on how you clamp over the heel/body it might be too short. If anyone plans on getting a clamp for this conversion I would get a 12" length.

And no offence was intended to "real hillbillies". It was meant in the best "git 'er done" spirit of the term.

I think you mean "Git 'R' Done". That's how I inlayed in on Larry's guitar 20 years ago anyway. Not one of my proudest accomplishments.



Yes, we painted the flag on the face as well. I think today I would be less likely to take this job. Now let's never speak those words again...

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I bought the Jaws 2 in advance of David and Hesh's April 30 fretting class. I've used it already, and my opinion is pretty much the same as everyone else's. I'll be sending an email to S.M. outlining my opinion. Aside from the radius inserts, I don't see anything that couldn't be replicated in an afternoon.
The vise grip version of this tool looks to be more used friendly.

Alex

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

In defense of StewMac's choice on this tool, they really face a tough battle. In the age of Walmart and Home Depot house brand tools, every manufacturer and retailer is facing overwhelming pressure to cut every penny they can.

I might sound like an old man, but it used to be that if you wanted a good router, clamp, guitar, pipe wrench, you saved or budgeted for it, and invested in something durable and reliable. There may still be pockets of those who value quality and find the differences important, but they are a minority of today's consumer base, and often not enough to sustain production and availability of more durable products.

Look at the Porter Cable 310. Not enough people were willing to spend $200 on a laminate trimmer to keep it in production, and even though there are clear differences in quality, pretty much everyone today seems fine with a plastic Black & Decker glorified Dremel tool, so long as it's cheap enough. Or look at files - for a high quality specialty file, $60-$80 used to be considered reasonable if you're investing in a quality tool produced for a limited market. The Grobet nut files are now gone though, because not only was $25 a file too much for most, but I see complaints all the time of saying StewMac's nut files are a rip off at $12 each.

That is absolutely insane! Most buyers can't tell squat about quality and wouldn't care if they could, because all they care about is Dollar Store prices up front.

So, in spite of the overwhelming agreement within this limited community on the appreciable differences in performance between genuine Bessey clamps vs their economy counterparts, I'm not sure it will be enough for StewMac to make the change. If that's the case, I won't be able to blame them really. There may be a few dozen folks willing to pay an extra $20 for the tool, but if it ends up cutting their sales overall by 20% then they would be taking a loss for our ideals.

Perhaps a more reasonable request may be for them to sell the holder and backing cauls separate from the clamp, even if by special request only (maybe an exclusive OLF special?). Then those who don't know or don't care can buy the full set with the cheaper bar clamp, and those to whom the difference matters can buy a Bessey separately and customize it to fit as David has shown above.

Dunno. Maybe that won't work, just venting some frustration with the race to the bottom, driven by consumer demand. Thanks for the post though David - may be good to bookmark for future reference, if this ends up the path everyone here has to take.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Stew does sell the caul separately and the wood blocks seperately ($11) but the caul has a 3/8" shank for chucking into a drill or arbor press.
Does anyone know if this shank id removable?
Alternatively, I may get the one with the shank and improvise a way to use it with a Bessey clamp, then I have the option of the clamp or using my drill press.
Any thoughts?
Dave

huh...you know I saw the pics of that tool and 'assumed' (yeah, ass-u-me) that it was a quality Bessey clamp...wow, they should be sued for impersonation of another's product line...

for the price of that thing it should contain quality parts...

great tutorial on how to rectify the problem

The clamp looks like a 2 1/2" throat in the pictures. Is that correct?
Dave

Yes, I am sorry I used the term and phrase. My ugly Yankee roots showing.

Yes, throat depth is 2 1/2"

I don't blame Stew Mac entirely either. We are all to blame. Every time we buy the lowest priced thing because it has the lowest price, we steer the ship. What I lament is a middle time when you could buy the cheep tool and expect to get what you paid for, or you could buy a tool at much greater cost if you wanted a good one. I used to figure buyers and producers of poor quality items deserved each other and I could just stand to the side and keep buying quality. Now it seems the "good one" frequently has been bumped out of existence. Not available at any price. What I do blame Stew Mac for though, is the color of the clamp. Economics might force your hand with quality but deception I see differently.

Looking back at what I wrote, I should have realized that I wasn't speaking from a point of experience with this tool. I'm sure that I'll have better success after my day with David and Hesh. I'll see about swapping the F clamp with a Bessy at some point.

Alex

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

Well, I know what I'm doing after Easter dinner tomorrow!!

It's an interesting discussion about the race to the bottom though. Stew-Mac still feels like a value brand and as such can charge more and should be higher quality. I work for a certain operating system company and we feel the race to the bottom daily with $99 PC's that have a user experience of a $99 PC, yet people expect them to perform like an $800 PC or worse they expect it to perform like "their buddy's iMac" and when it doesn't it must be the OS.

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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.

the 3/8" shank on the Arbor press version is not removable.

I'll have to disagree with you on the concept of quality vs. cost...

Recently there was a thread started by a poster railing at the costs of Stew Mac items...many people jumped in to defend them, and I made a post about costs of limited production items and how that drives up the cost since it's a specialty item being sold in small quantities and how that relates to the ability to recoup costs over time...

So I find it funny that now the argument about pressures to reduce costs is a factor in the flaws of this tool from Stew Mac...

Seriously, they have a business model based up high quality goods for a limited market...there is NO room in that model for shoddy products...

While I Shirley agree with the sentiments about modern day demand of tools and big box suppliers and how that relates to serious wood workers (as I've repeatedly stated, it's very hard to find quality, long lasting tools these days), I don't feel that argument flies when referring to Stew Mac...

If they want to pursue this type of manufacturing, then I suggest they start a model of 2 types of tools: one for beginners who may well give up on it, and another for those needing the best of the best...I don't see that model flying as the costs of offering that larger stock profile seem too high to pull of and survive the period of time to recoup the investment (R&D, more space to stock the items, etc.)

Just the 2¢ of a person with a 4 year degree in economics who's been a carpenter for the last 30 years.

I have not used this tool -- but as for marketing it is clearly a "value analysis" decision for both Stew Mac and their supplier getting to a price point they know will sell --- keep in mind this just a hobby for many. I suspect that if the tool was originally released in its current configuration this may be a non-issue. Seems it does work and indeed does the job it was designed to do. Smoother may be nice, but is it really a functional requirement?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

And I am going to be disagreeing with you as well, respectfully. IMO Stew-Mac's business model is not "high quality goods for a limited market..." Stew-Mac although a great company has to attempt to serve the folks who DO complain about the price and complain frequently. You may not have seen it in this thread but that's an exception since in the archives there are likely dozens of threads where someone who has never cut a nut slot before and likely never will again plays the expert assuming that they know what things should cost and complains over and over again.

During different periods of the OLF's history and with different folks here for what ever reasons at times Stew-Mac is WAY too expensive to some. The pros have for the most part always defended Stew-Mac in my experience and we have also been aware that Stew-Mac has to walk a line that may be impossible to do attempting to serve the hobbyist and the pros.

We both have very different needs. To us it's mouse nuts to purchase a tool that may be expensive IF it does the job very well. We know that we will be using it over and over and that it will be in and of itself a revenue center for us.

It's an investment in quality, repeatability, accessibility, and hopefully provides some certainty too. That's value.... an understatement and value does not have a low or high price, it is what it is depending on how it stacks up.

Look at the comments on Stew-Mac's very own site and you will see plenty of folks mentioning or complaining about the price.....

My description of Stew-Mac's business model would be something like this: providing value to folks at all levels of the Lutherie hobby/trade.

Now how does one do this exactly? Dave and I and likely others would have no aversion to paying $200 for the Jaws II with a quality Bessey clamp. Just how many of these would Stew-Mac sell if it was the only model - likely not as many as they currently sell.

Stew-Mac is very much an accurate reflection of their market in my view. Some folks are going to be very limited users of these tools and as such the tools need to function but need not be capable of functioning 1,000 times. Others are going to use the Jaws II tool perhaps even 1,000 times in it's life and would appreciate something that can do that.

I used to work for the largest company in the world and the largest manufacturer as well. We were Six Sigma and some of us back in the day took it to other levels with certifications as master black belts in six sigma. We made jet engines, gatling guns, aircraft, locomotives, plastics, nuclear power plants, conventional power plants, software, light bulbs, consumer appliances, etc. We had defense divisions who only built things that could withstand -600F in deep space or had gold plated parts for corrosion resistance when on another planet.

This company served the consumers, perhaps much like Lutherie hobbyists AND NASA, DoD, foreign ally militaries, etc.

Do you know what it took for GE to serve two very different markets being consumers and applications where folks lives depended on it? 14 separate major companies and hundreds of smaller subsidiary companies.

Stew-Mac attempts to serve their two very different markets all from one small company and as such I think that they do an excellent job of it. I'm not always thrilled as evidenced in this thread but I also know that some dumpster diver sort who has never built anything yet is very likely to flame Stew-Mac on a public Internet forum for a false perception of high prices and low value. It happens, it's happened here countless times and it will happen again here I am sure.

What's the answer? Fortunately Stew-Mac employs industry pros, an understatement because doing a great job, providing real value, and living to play another day is important to them.

Did I mention the world-class customer service too?

I suspect that Stew-Mac will continue to serve both the hobbyists and the pros and I also suspect that if they didn't there is not enough of a market in either segment to sustain or grow them. Stew-Mac also depends on the working-in-the-trade folks, the pros to create demand for some of these tools by using them and relating our experiences. Lots of Jaws II tools have been sold because of our classes and likely lots more will be too.

I get-it that not everyone is here for the same reasons but I will always be concerned when someone who is not an industry pro makes the false claim that Stew-Mac is expensive (or cheap). That's hasn't happened in this thread.... but it's happened dozens of times on this forum and many, many others for years.

In my view it's likely that Stew-Mac is just about in the right market space and that's good for all of us.

For you hobbyists if Stew-Mac was not around if might be a pain. For us pros if Stew-Mac perished it would be a much darker and longer day....

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I don't see where we disagree much on the concepts, but rather on the realities of the market demands driving decisions at companies like StewMac.

They have always been a company with goals to straddle the line between hobbyists and professionals. Years ago they were pioneers, introducing new tools and concepts, with a prominent position in the market. When LMII had a $30 purchased catalog and StewMac was black and white newsprint, they were a main supplier for professionals and often the only choice for most hobbyists.

Today we have countless dealers in the Internet, through eBay, Amazon, direct order in small quantities from China, along with a surge in the do-it-yourself market through forums and websites - the market has changed drastically, and the percentage of prospects for quality durable tools has become a drop in the bucket.

Their business model may have been based on high quality goods for a limited market 20 years ago, that market has shrunk drastically, while the market of low-budget hobbyists who will work on a dozen guitars in their life has grown exponentially, and competition at both ends has dramatically ballooned.

They have done quite well finding the quality/cost, professional/hobbyist balance in the past, but the market has changed. You may see defense of price to preserve quality on forums like this, but if you spend some time looking through the other 1,001 guitar forums out there that make up the other 95% share of their market, you'll find themes of "StewMac is a ripoff", and "How do they get away with charging so much?" as much more common sentiments.

It's sad, but this is where the market has shifted, penny pinching fools who can't tell or don't care about quality are the dominant force in the market, and can't be dismissed by a company like StewMac if they want to compete and survive. We are a drop in the bucket today, and they are facing a tough challenge in maintaining their status as benchmark for our tiny professional market, while at the same time remaining competitive in the ever-cheapening and expanding hobbyist market.

The Walmart luthier, used to low price disposable everything, with no concept of what it takes to make durable quality products for a limited market, is the primary driving force today.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

fine...I'll take the thrashing like a man...

being a person who uses tools 8 hrs a day, 6 days a week, I prefer things of quality 99% of the time...yeah, there are times I have use for something for limited/one time use and prefer to not shell out big bucks...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...as a side note on that concept I find use of a quality clamp to do the application of force needed to join plates, then put a cheap beside it to hold it and move the Bessey down the line to the next point of pressure...

anyway, you all are far more informed of StewMac's model and such...to me they represent a high priced specialty supplier and I've always viewed them as being of high quality...so much for perceptions, eh?...in the big picture, it's not rocket building and I guess at some point cost vs. ability to sell must be considered.

This caul... its the same one used on their fret press, right? If so, I will buy another of just that (since I have all of the other parts) and make my own Jaws using a Bessey clamp. Thanks for the post. I bought that same kit a while back and added it to a Harbor Freight press.. Works great.

Thanks Mike and I'm no thrasher either.... Just trying to make the point that Stew-Mac has to walk a very fine line between the hobbyist and pro and as such some of their stuff reflects this. It's not unlike an election when one may find the candidates not to their liking. Perhaps both Stew-Mac and elections each somewhat accurately reflect who's buying.....

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Ann Arbor Guitars