Posts: 10,676
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Location: Orlando, Florida
There are plenty of hobbyists who are willing to pay extra for high quality tools. Take Festool, for example. Their tools are 2-3x what you'd pay for a Milwaukee, Dewalt, or Makita equivalent, but people are willing to do that. They are made in Germany, not China. It's a matter of investing in manufacturing technology and also making corporate decisions about where your market is. Unfortunately, many American companies have bought into this notion that the American consumer wants the cheapest price for everything, so they simply stopped making the good stuff here.
There's another factor in play as well. The reason you can find so many good quality used industrial machines available now is partly because they stuff they were making with them is now made in Asia as well. When you stop making furniture in the US, you don't need the tools anymore. You stop making things here, you don't need that skilled labor anymore. No need for skilled labor, no need for high school vocational woodshops. No woodshop classes, less folks interested in hobby woodworking. It's a vicious cycle.
Still Learning,
Allan Hill
Posts: 200
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(11-18-2016, 04:30 PM)AHill Wrote: There are plenty of hobbyists who are willing to pay extra for high quality tools. Take Festool, for example. Their tools are 2-3x what you'd pay for a Milwaukee, Dewalt, or Makita equivalent, but people are willing to do that. They are made in Germany, not China. It's a matter of investing in manufacturing technology and also making corporate decisions about where your market is. Unfortunately, many American companies have bought into this notion that the American consumer wants the cheapest price for everything, so they simply stopped making the good stuff here.
There's another factor in play as well. The reason you can find so many good quality used industrial machines available now is partly because they stuff they were making with them is now made in Asia as well. When you stop making furniture in the US, you don't need the tools anymore. You stop making things here, you don't need that skilled labor anymore. No need for skilled labor, no need for high school vocational woodshops. No woodshop classes, less folks interested in hobby woodworking. It's a vicious cycle.
The VAST majority of Americans want more stuff vs better stuff, and while Festool does OK here their volume is a drop in the bucket compared to the big power tool makers. But Festool, Mafell and hand tool makers like Lie Nielsen, Blue Spruce, Bridge City and Veritas still have a very limited audience. I don't think corporations told us we wanted cheap stuff, we told them, we have very high quality products in every niche but "we" just don't buy them. A Vitamix blender is just a couple of keystrokes away but there will be more off-brand and low end blenders sold on Friday than Vitamix sells in a year and many to people that could afford the Vitamix but would rather get a blender, a 50" TV and a 50 piece pot and pan set for the same money.
Even if the US furniture business hadn't been gutted you would still see the steady stream of 16" jointers and 36" bandsaws and the like. If you walk the halls at IWF or AWFS there are almost no traditional woodworking machines there it is all huge automated CNC and finishing machines. The traditional machines that are there are for the small commercial cabinet shops and to a lesser degree the hobbyist.
