Jay Knepper writes:


Reading the preceding thread has shown a stunning level of naiveté, and a
crassness which is usually found only in electrical threads.

Now really, does anyone think that Laguna tools is going to come in last in
a battle of bandsaws if Laguna has been buying cover 4 for the last 3 years?
If so, well, there's little more to be said. Tool reviews in commercial
magazines are of limited value.

Do you really think the Laguna is apt to come in last in a test of bandsaws?

Of course tool reviews are of limited use, and for a variety of reasons that
have zip to do with advertising. First, possibly foremost, my shop is not your
shop. My electrical set-up may be totally different, shop arrangements HAVE to
be different (when was the last time you had nine table saws in your shop?),
time spent in set-up has to be different (when you test six saws to a deadline,
you cannot spend a week of evenings on each saw setting it up and getting all
the quirks out of it). Second, when I'm testing, again, I'm working to a
deadline. I'm also arranging and shooting photos of the tools. I cannot run
1000 board feet of wood through each function of each tool. I often don't have
time to run 10 board feet through. Tools such as planers and table saws are
actually pretty easy in this arena, since I generally use a fair amount of oak
and cherry from a local sawmill. And I cannot take the time, and won't have the
budget, to run 10-15 board feet of teak or lyptus through the tools to see how
that kind of treatment works on the particular tool.

The tool is going to get assembled and set up as quickly as is possible for
safe use. If it is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of adjustment from the factory,
then it will get a bit of tune-up time, but otherwise, it is tested OOTB--out
of the box. No tweaks.

That gives a certain equality to the results, anyway, because the need for a
lot of adjustment just to reach parity is going to be mentioned in the article,
while the other tools start from an equal footing.

I was talking this over with an editor yesterday, and we decided that for all
the whines and whimpers, this is probably the best era for hobbyist woodworkers
vis a vis tools that has ever existed. You can get it all, from Lie-Nielsen
reproductions (and LN improvements along with Veritas improvements) on
classical hand tools, but you can also get a wider than ever variety of brands
of power tools to add to that, with a greater than ever variety of power tools.
And most of those tools are of good or better quality, with much the lower end
stuff halfway decent starter tools at almost no investment (though I've got to
admit that a $40 CMS would find me standing WELL to one side on start-up, not
just the first time, but every time).

As time has passed, lower level tools have been improved. There are still
"engineering" glitches that are surprising in some, alignment problems that may
be easy, or impossible, to fix and a host of other possible problems. But the
operative word, I think, is "possible". Most of what you'll find out there is
workable, some of it is quite good, and some of it is excellent (Laguna
bandsaws tend to fall in the latter category, and most often get tested with
other tools in the same category).

I've hammered, and seen hammered, too many large advertisers' products over the
years to believe that many of the writers in the field are going easy because a
company buys five or six or eight pages of ads per month in a particular
magazine. And in the years I've been doing this work, I have never had an
editor to tell me to favor an advertised tool over a non-advertised tool, or to
favor a tool that doesn't deserve. The actual deal is usually, "Tell my readers
what features the tools have and how well those features work."

Tool tests serve their purpose if they give the reader an overview of many
(sometimes not even most) of the brands out there, their prices and where those
prices fit in the general range of the category, their ease of assembly (or
lack of ease) and adjustment, their suitability for doing the jobs considered
normal for the category, and the likelihood they'll keep doing those jobs for a
reasonable length of time. If you expect detailed 10,000 bf use tests of each
tool, or even in each category, then you're wasting your time.

Personally, I consider them a little like vehicle tests, which are done
differently at Road & Track than they are at Consumer Reports. I'm maybe not in
the market for a vehicle from either end of that spectrum, but the tests
themselves may prove of value in finding out which vehicles fit into those
particular areas. Use the tests as another way of gathering information on the
tools you want or need. And realize that they're not, and can't be, complete,
and you'll come away a lot happer. Read multiple tool tests and decide. I've
differed with some magazines as to features that are valuable...Pop.
Woodworking, for example, likes higher speed (ca. 3400 rpm) benchtop mortisers;
I prefer ca. 1700 rpm machines. The difference is fundamental, and based on a
desire, or lack of desire, for speed in producing mortises in a hobbyist's
setting (a pro is not going to be using a benchtop mortiser after about the
second item he builds with it). I like slow and no burn of material or tool
(tool does not turn blue, in other words0. PW likes fast and accepts occasional
burn. With patience, the slow machine does not stall out. With patience and a
penchant for sharpening bits greater than mine, the fast machine won't burn
materials, and will seldom blue a chisel or bit to the point of non-utility.

To get called, among other things, a liar and a whore by some horse's butt
(speaking of the OP here) who has no familiarity with magazine production,
magazine writing, tool production, tool testing and a host of other needed bits
of information, is irritating. When I call a politician names, I usually have
some information other than the fact that he's in elected office. It would be
nice to get the same courtesy, though I do realize people "who don't intend to
hurt anyone" and who make such comments are not bright enough to understand
that.

Charlie Self
"A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers." H. L. Mencken