Arch wrote:
Cleaning out the shop today (ok, shifting the cultch around) I found an
old invoice from Mole Hill Turnery in Scotland. I can't remember his
name, but he was active on rcw and a nice chap. At the time he had very
good prices on British turning tools, so good in fact that the Mfgs.
refused to continue dealing with him. Anybody recall his name or have
kept in touch with him? I often wonder about other fine people that have
passed thru rcw in years past.

Sorry K.M. for breaking COC bylaws. Guess Lori didn't put enough ground
glass in my soup today.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter



Arch - I remember this guy well. He was indeed a very nice guy,
someone just trying to make a living. But talk about getting crushed
by "the machine". The way he told the story was that he worked a deal
with Crown (about when they were just getting going here in the US) to
sell tools. He sold out of his shed, and he was the marketer,
merchandising, invoicing, shipping and web master for the enterprise.
He sunk a fair amount of money into the project, apparently a lot of
his savings.

But the folks at Crown had also worked a deal with the Nishes at Craft
Supplies. They were evidently (I cannot remember all of Dale's reply
to this issue as there were many) promised some exclusivity, and they
put a lot of money into promoting and developing the market for those
tools. I remember when they were pushing them like crazy, and they
thought they had the US market.

Along comes molehill. As chief cook and bottle washer, he was able to
sell for less than Craft Supplies, and you bought right off his
website. When he undercut the CS price, that was when the stuff hit
the fan. Both Molehill and CS were promised certain things, and
apparently Crown decided to go with CS as they would certainly outsell
Molehill no matter what the price.

I emailed many times back and forth with Molehill (Brian?) and he told
me a lot of this. He was really hurt that Crown literally cut him off,
and before anyone could get a handle on the whole situatino he was
threatened with some kind of lawsuit, and other things I don't
remember. He was forced to liquidate his stock and cease advertisement
of Crown tools. He put the tools up for sale at what he had in them,
and many of us bought from him as a sign of support. He was a helluva
nice guy, but in the end I think that it was simply a case of some
double dealing by Crown, and CS not wanting their market diluted by any
small percentage.

At any rate, here he is:

http://www.mhordam.freeuk.com/index.html

Let us know if you contact him. I still remember watching the progress
of that stone "shed" as he called it.

Robert