Anybody have any experience with the iroquois ironworker line of
products? (iroquoisiron.com)

Bryan wrote:

Anybody have any experience with the iroquois ironworker line of
products? (iroquoisiron.com)


Look like nice machines, expensive though. If you can afford it, get a Geka. The
cheapest full-featured ones are the Uni-Hydros. Price punches & dies before you
purchase a machine.

GWE

...and if you're within striking distance of Los Angeles, CA next
week you can see just about every brand of same in action.

--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Concave, convex, con
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : carne: all is Zen..
www.nmpproducts.com
---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

Looks like a new company, suspiciously close to Scotchman, making
simple, homemade style ironworkers.

Not very sophisticated design, although the ability to have a 24" press
brake is a cool idea.
Pretty cost competitive- expect that to change if they stay in
business, as nobody will know about em unless they advertise and hit
the trade shows- and that costs money.
The way scotchman got to where they are is the ironworker equivalent of
a rock band constantly touring- scotchman bought ads in every magazine,
and hit every trade show. People have to see em, to even consider
buying em.

But really, I would have to agree with the "Buy a Geka" comment.

The difference between a well thought out, real machine tool, versus a
hydraulic cylinder and some heavy plate, is worth a couple of grand
more, in my mind.
Geka has really good gaging tables at both ends, with built in
stainless steel rulers.
Electric stops that are sturdy and also feature built in stainless
steel rulers make repetitive, accurate, measuring tape free cuts.
Quick change tooling.

The other thing I think is that you are taking a risk on a new company,
that doesnt seem to be very heavily capitalised, and you have no idea
how long they will be around, for service or parts.
Buffalo and Edwards, Hill Acme have all been around for a hundred
years.
Geka, Mubea, and Peddinghaus, at least 50.
Even Scotchman is pushing 25 or 30 years, with the Dvorak they
descended from going back to 1950 or so.
Piranha is owned by a big company now that also owns Bertsch and W.A.
Whitney.

Being able to call somebody up, to troubleshoot, or to order parts, is
worth something to me.

But really, I think the timesaving features of the Geka outclass every
other machine on the market. I have had my Geka for 5 or 6 years now,
and it is easy to use, accurate, and fast. I have seen endless
scotchmans, uni-hydro's and piranhas with bits of angle iron
vise-gripped to em, with tape measures hanging off them, which take
longer to make inaccurate cuts.

Does Geka have a home web page?

On 24 Mar 2006 17:26:28 GMT, steamer wrote:

...and if you're within striking distance of Los Angeles, CA next
week you can see just about every brand of same in action.

Que Pasta? (Sorry, we just got back from Pizza Cookery.) ;-0

Where is this, kind sir? Machinery show?

-- Bruce --

--LOL; good one! Yeah, it's WESTEC next week at the L.A. Convention
Center. Put on thru SME; the website's at:
http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-event...7-019767--SME-

--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Concave, convex, con
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : carne: all is Zen..
www.nmpproducts.com
---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

Geka is made in Spain- so yeah, there is a spanish home page, but
better is their american distributor-
http://www.comeq.com/

Really, check out the tables and stops, and the electric stop- these
are the things that seperate them from the crowd. Instant quick adjust
handles, just slide it to 2" on the ruler, and your hole is punched 2"
from the edge. No measuring, no marking, no center punching.
Same with the length stop cutoff- I use it even if I am only cutting
one piece- you set it at 24", you get a 24" long piece- no marking,
measuring, trying to squint in there and seeing if your sharpie mark is
really on the edge of the shear- it saves a LOT of time.

Plus, the overall production quality is very high. We work the hell out
of ours, and it never complains.