glaser website down

[Hilel Salomon]

Mike, Gordon,

As a profligate tool junkie myself, I went to Louisville in order to see and get a Glaser. I had called him and he told me that he had retired and that Hi-tec was making them. At the show there were literally dozens of Hi-tec reps, but to a man, they badmouthed the Glasers and talked up their own cryogenic tools. If I would have had my "arrogance meter" I might have been able to compare them to the owner of Laguna. In any case, their attitude suggested to me that they were not going to worry much about quality control, and I'm guessing that their absence in Richmond corroborates this. Thompson makes great tools, but I'm also very happy w/Hamlet and most Crown stuff.
Regards, Hilel.

[Mike Minto]

i heard about glaser tools late in their game - i've only been turning a little over a couple of years. i, too, am a tool junkie, early PC hardware adopter, etc, so if i could have found one, i'm sure i'd have tried a V15 just for the sake of having one on the tool rack. as it is now, i'll have two V10 glasers as of tomorrow when the bedan arrives; wish i had bought more gouges when i got the one i did, last year, as i said. oh, well - doug thompson does make excellent tools, as most folks here have said - hopefully, he'll be making them for a good, long time. lastly, based on what the fellow at highland said about no response to the problem with some of the screw chucks from the 'new' hitec, and what others have said here, i won't be looking into any of the new companies tools, even if offered for sale. mike

[Gordon Seto]

I remember them in Louisville Symposium. They came with style, very impressive. Their booth took up a very large section of the vendors area. Unfortunately they are over promise, under delivery. I have heard some people eventually cancel the orders after waiting an extended period of time.

Looking back, if they could deliver the orders they got at the Symposium, we may not have Thompson Tools now. It seems to me they have a production problem. Last year, I order the Glaser screw chucks with extra screws from Highland in January. Highland shipped the in stock screws to me by FedEx immediately, but no approximate date for the chuck. I posted the screw chuck availability problem in another Forum. The new owner responded that they were under production and plenty would be available soon in May. Eventually I got it in August. I doubt it would take that long to manufacture the screw chucks. For a $100 retail chuck, it was averaging a $1 a day for 3 months!

[Doug Thompson]

I'm also a tool junkie with 11 old glaser tools with 4 still in the original package, this was started to fill that need. It sounds like fun to start a business around your hobby and it is fun but the fact is it's still a business. The fact is it takes more time to take care of the business with the phone calls, running around, paperwork, shipping etc etc than you have to manufacture the product. What most of us see is a manufacture at a symposium in a booth talking to everyone, what you don't see is all the prep work done before and after. The national symposium is a good example, the prep work started 3 months before and the last 3 weeks was non-stop.

I understand why manufactures in our hobby stop producing, it takes a lot of time that comes after family and a real job which is more important. One day you'll start a thread about Thompson Lathe Tools going out of business, it's a cycle that will happen in our small world... if I don't stop smoking real soon it will happen sooner than later.

[Mike Minto]

[/QUOTE - D. THOMPSON]I understand why manufactures in our hobby stop producing, it takes a lot of time that comes after family and a real job which is more important. One day you'll start a thread about Thompson Lathe Tools going out of business, it's a cycle that will happen in our small world... if I don't stop smoking real soon it will happen sooner than later.[/QUOTE]

i understand what doug is saying, and believe it. funny, though, i've seen threads such as this regarding problems with a manufacturer actually spur a business to improve it's performance - if they read the forum - they will remain nameless, but i've seen it happen here. mike

[Mike Minto]

never mind...