On Aug 20, 6:23 pm, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
wrote:
I am pretty sick of "product testers" checking out new tools in
these
magazines. Guys that might be testing screwdrivers one week,
blenders
and toasters the next, are testing tools for specific use when most
have no knowledge of the tool in general.

Kind of tough to get a truly objective evaluation of a product by an
employee or group of employees of a publication that has the product
manufacturer as an advertiser.

Consumer Reports tries, but is a mixed bag on results IMHO.

Practical Sailor tries to evaluate sailboat equipment, but high test
costs make it very difficult to keep afloat with only subscription
revenues as the source of income.

Pushing on a rope has a better chance over the long haul, IMHO.


I did tool testing, round-ups and reviews for Popular Woodworking many
years ago, and for WWJ more recently. At no time did an editor suggest
I ease up. Now, subconsciously, I might have done so, but I sure
didn't do it consciously. We did NOT do drop tests and similar
durability checks, because those tools were tested for shop use, and
because the expense is higher all around for that kind of destructive
testing. First, you have to design something meaningful. I've seen
carpenters screw up a cut on a second story job, and kick the saw out
the window so that it dropped on concrete. Imitating that isn't
sensible. Once you design the durability tests, you have to talk both
the manufacturer and the editor into paying for them. First, instead
of one tool that might or might not get returned, you'll find you need
at least three (we're talking power hand tools he ain't no one
gonna send you three table saws, same model and specs, for one test).
Second, the tester/writer/photographer has to spend much more time--
and I mean MUCH--doing the durability or destruction testing, after
locating or building what's needed for the test. That means your two
to three week article is now going to take eight to ten weeks. Is the
editor, and by extension the publisher and the advertisers, willing to
pay for that? They may be out there, but I know of NO woodworking
magazine ever that has paid 8 or 10 grand for an article.

I've mangled a tool or six in my life, some by accident and some
deliberately, but generally no one is willing to pay for that
particular knowledge. Yes, they'd like to have it. Yes, I'd like to do
it. But the money simply is not there, or at least it wasn't. It
probably still isn't, especially in a down economy that appears likely
to last for some time. I haven't done tool testing since taking a job
I regretted ever hearing about, but I'm open for offers on
replications of things like how a new Unisaw compares to an old
Unisaw, which was the workhorse of decades of cabinet and furniture
and hobby shop (damned saw is older than I am, at least in its basic
model, and there's not much I can say that about these days). I'm also
open to offers for destruction testing of things like circular saws
(but not the two I have, a Festool and an old Porter-Cable), drills
and various cordless tools. But I doubt I'll get the assignments, nor
will anyone else.