Hello again stranger,
(It must be stranger, since it’s been a while since I’ve added anything here!)
Just a little news from the mad house that is here.
The new stuff is, for the time being, some new stones. You’d think that the expansive range of stones that are already presented in the store would be enough, but no, there are more in the now and more coming over the coming weeks.
The first instalment are the Suehiro ‘Cerax’ stones.
These rather economical stones are quite good. Not the ‘stay flat’ of the Sigma Power, but they are some of the nicest stones to actually use I’ve ever seen. Throw into the mix that they seem to work with all steels well, are very fast and don’t have any nasty habits to speak of, if you’re looking for an economical sharpening stone they should be on your short list.
We’re most of the way into sorting out the details with Suehiro, and most of what we’re trying to sort out is making an effort to make some very special, rarely seen and very expensive stones a little more affordable and a little more well known. These two points go hand in hand with each other, and trying to do one without the other just won’t work.
And Suehiro have such a broad range of products from the cheap and cheerful all the way up to eye-watering, it was inevitable that we’d end up working with them.
More new stuff will be coming in short order, and they’ll be chisels. Very nice chisels. But more details on them next week.
In the ‘not cheap’ category, there will be a price increase from June 24 of Tsunesaburo’s ‘Miki’ type planes.
The increase is of approximately 20% across the board, and we’ve no choice but to pass it on, although I’ll try to keep the increase as small as possible. Worst case is that our price will increase by the full 20%, but no more than that.
The good news is that we have warning of this coming price increase, and have a full 4 weeks before it’s implemented so if you’d like to own one of these impressive planes and for some reason have been holding off on getting one, dilly-dally no longer. You don’t have much time.
On the upside, Tsunesaburo will be re-introducing some planes, namely the regular High Speed Steel planes (unlike the Miki’s Powder Metal HSS) and their price will be slightly less than the current Miki prices, size for size. With these planes, you’ll be able to get much of the benefits of a HSS blade (extended edge life, relatively easy sharpening as they work with a grinder) with a slightly reduced price.
For now, that’s about all I have to tell.
Sorry I’m not updating this blog as often as I would like. There’s just so much going on here at the moment, it’s almost impossible to think.
Stu.
