Why WW pubs look down on SS?

[JPG]

The Powerpro motor is an adaptation of the Teknatool motor developed in New Zealand(university). The Teknatool motor was initially manufactured in New Zealand. They later moved manufacturing to China. The Powerpro motor is made in China.

[dusty]

US buyers are hard pressed these days to find anything that is truly "Made in the USA". Even well known American companies have facilities off shore.

Why? 1) Tax avoidance and 2) Lower manufacturing costs

Made in China does not necessarily mean "poor quality" does it? Example: PowerPro

[WmZiggy]

I want to thank all for some really insightful replies, and I have even had to rethink my whine to some degree. There has been some coverage of SS in some mags out there as some of you have posted, and my word "disparage" on the part of woodworking mags was a poor choice. Advertising ("money talks" as someone wrote) plays a key role in what gets used in demonstration projects in the mags. I think we all agree that SS needs to do more than they are currently doing and I wish they would improve their media footprint and not fall into a "black hole". On a spectrum, SS is somewhere between those who only use people powered tools like Roy Underhill, and a Norm Abrams where plug-in brute power is the measure of one's shop. Probably shouldn't paint with too broad a brush here, but I think it safe to say we all wish SS had a better press.

[billmayo]

The Powerpro motor is an adaptation of the Teknatool motor developed in New Zealand(university). The Teknatool motor was initially manufactured in New Zealand. They later moved manufacturing to China. The Powerpro motor is made in China.

I believe the Teknatool China factory was build in the past 5 years with robotic machinery that meets the latest existing manufacturing standards. I believe it uses only a minimum of skilled workers to handle the input materials and finished products. No cheap labor was being used. This factory had some very nice articles published on its operation a couple years ago. I would believe this is a better quality product than any motor made locally.

[seajay62]

There is a blog posted, in Popular Woodworking magazine on-line site, about two years ago that provided a short review of the Mark VII. Here is the link:

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/tools/the-new-mark-vii-from-shopsmith/comment-page-1#comments

The review, although short, is positive. The comments provide some interesting insights from various user points of view. As for the fundamental question that started this thread, I agree that money and audience interest are the prime drivers of magazine reviews and articles. I would love to see stories and reviews about SS and SS owners. Since I don't see them in the commercial magazines, I rely on this and other forums for the information that I is relevent.

I have owned my shopsmith since 1986, when I purchased it new. I bought it because Iwaas impressed with the demo I had seen and it provided me the multiple woodworking functions I thought I needed a a DIYer and woodworker in the limited space that was available to me.

I've moved a few times over the years and never was able to increase my workshop space so the SS still works for me. I use one bay in a two car garage. Over the years, I enjoyed and learned a lot from the Traveling Woodworking Academy when they were available and Nick Engler's Sawdust Session videos.

I need to get back into my shop to my creative outlet and peace.

[nil]

I'm pretty sure that if shopsmith spent as much on advertising in these magazines as Powermatic, you'd see a whole different level of coverage...

BUT....

While I love my new Mark 7, I've found it wasn't up to the task of milling the rough walnut slabs I got a while ago as a craigslist find. The walnut actually stopped the power pro saw blade, but to be fair it's because I was struggling around the table and the 180lb slabs of wood and the 10 ft length. I had one person on each end of it with ikea shelves clamped to the wood to help it run against the side of the table to help it run true, and because we only got halfway through before the blade got completely stuck in the walnut where backing it out took great difficulty, I had to abort and cut the rest with a hand saw.

After just cutting it short enough to fit in my van by hand, I took it to work and finished up on a sawstop table (with 3HP) and it was like cutting butter.

To be fair.. I also tripped the circuit breakers 3 times trying to resaw a full 12 inches (by seven feet) with a laguna 14 inch bandsaw.. but I eventually made it through.

Here are some before & after photos:







It's on its way to becoming a standing height desk and who knows what else with the left over... I have two 2.5"x2.5" 7ft long sections cut for making the legs, I bookmatched the resawed portion for a 24 inch wide by six foot long table top, and I'll probably take that out further with a nice four inch frame around it and a walnut inlay to hide room for expansion. The resawed part ended up being 7/8" thick for each half.. and I'll probably get to be really good at filling knots and cracks with epoxy resin.

[frank81]

I believe the Teknatool China factory was build in the past 5 years with robotic machinery that meets the latest existing manufacturing standards. I believe it uses only a minimum of skilled workers to handle the input materials and finished products. No cheap labor was being used. This factory had some very nice articles published on its operation a couple years ago. I would believe this is a better quality product than any motor made locally.

Precision machinery is not the real issue with China. Any manufacturer could have shipped better equipment over there.

Cheap labor is not the real issue either. The labor content in machinery is not terribly high to begin with, so there is only so much room for opportunity offset by logistics.

The real issue is the local supply chain and how Chinese industry is structured. Unless you're starting with true raw materials, you have to use the parts available from Chinese suppliers who are set up to make a few universal assemblies in extremely high volume at the bare minimum of cost and quality. This usually means sealed units that cannot be serviced, they sell you a whole new assembly rather than simply the small piece that broke.

Secondary issues are poor business ethics and govt protectionism. If you manufacture your product in China, and the plant (or supplier) cuts their costs (and increases their profit) by deviating from specs, which is very common, you can't remedy that like you could in the US which encourages them to do it even more.

[swampgator]

I'm very saddened to hear that the PowerPro could not handle this load. That is a real surprise. I've cut stuff on my old 1983 Mk V 500. Yes, it groaned and I slowed down the feed rate, but we made it. I've cut through stock that was too wide to cut on one or two passes and had to finish with a hand saw.

Frank, I have a little different view on labor and business. Back in the 1990's, when we were trying to reduce cost and become and maintain the most efficient and effective organization, my boss kept telling us to automate all that we could because labor was the largest expense of doing business. So, I wrote programs which minimized labor time and made the job so that just a few people had to be in a function to perform the tasks. We studied scope and functions, automated as closely as possible and I saw folks loose their jobs. Our automation purpose was to decrease labor and maintain or improve function.

[frank81]

I'm very saddened to hear that the PowerPro could not handle this load. That is a real surprise. I've cut stuff on my old 1983 Mk V 500. Yes, it groaned and I slowed down the feed rate, but we made it. I've cut through stock that was too wide to cut on one or two passes and had to finish with a hand saw.

Frank, I have a little different view on labor and business. Back in the 1990's, when we were trying to reduce cost and become and maintain the most efficient and effective organization, my boss kept telling us to automate all that we could because labor was the largest expense of doing business. So, I wrote programs which minimized labor time and made the job so that just a few people had to be in a function to perform the tasks. We studied scope and functions, automated as closely as possible and I saw folks loose their jobs. Our automation purpose was to decrease labor and maintain or improve function.

Labor is the largest controllable cost, but if you're talking how much potential savings are out there you have to look at labor cost as a percentage of total cost. Larger, less complex products usually have the lowest labor content. Something like a SS, how much labor does that take? You've got some cast parts, some parts fabbed from sheet metal with simple brakes, electrical components and a few parts that could be machined in-house. In a well run factory you might have 10 to 15 hours per unit and that's being generous. At $20/hr that's $200-300. Add 50% for variable OH, mainly benefits, so you're at $300 to $450. Not chump change but not a game changer when you factor in the cost of capital projects to cut hours or logistics and headaches to outsource.

I still maintain wages aren't the real reason for outsourcing to China.

[algale]

I'm pretty sure that if shopsmith spent as much on advertising in these magazines as Powermatic, you'd see a whole different level of coverage...

BUT....

While I love my new Mark 7, I've found it wasn't up to the task of milling the rough walnut slabs I got a while ago as a craigslist find. The walnut actually stopped the power pro saw blade, but to be fair it's because I was struggling around the table and the 180lb slabs of wood and the 10 ft length. I had one person on each end of it with ikea shelves clamped to the wood to help it run against the side of the table to help it run true, and because we only got halfway through before the blade got completely stuck in the walnut where backing it out took great difficulty, I had to abort and cut the rest with a hand saw.

After just cutting it short enough to fit in my van by hand, I took it to work and finished up on a sawstop table (with 3HP) and it was like cutting butter.

To be fair.. I also tripped the circuit breakers 3 times trying to resaw a full 12 inches (by seven feet) with a laguna 14 inch bandsaw.. but I eventually made it through.

Here are some before & after photos:







It's on its way to becoming a standing height desk and who knows what else with the left over... I have two 2.5"x2.5" 7ft long sections cut for making the legs, I bookmatched the resawed portion for a 24 inch wide by six foot long table top, and I'll probably take that out further with a nice four inch frame around it and a walnut inlay to hide room for expansion. The resawed part ended up being 7/8" thick for each half.. and I'll probably get to be really good at filling knots and cracks with epoxy resin.

That's a disappointing report on the performance of the Mark 7, which I would think has enough oomph to rip those boards if they were adequately supported -- and assuming you were using a good quality, sharp blade, the proper rpm setting and have a properly aligned machine. Would you mind expounding a little bit more about your experience and what you mean by using the shelves to guide the board against the side of the table as opposed to using the rip fence (I have trouble visualizing that because the sides of my 520 table are not all that flat -- the main table actually has protuberances that would prevent me from using the side as a guide for anything).

Al