Why not Delta?

[John Coloccia]

Well - This is a bit of a different take on this discussion, but as to why most of the discussion on the net boards are of Grizzly (and even Harbor Freight, of all things) and not Delta, Felder, etc..., remember that net boards are not the sum and total of the woodworking community. Based on my work experience assessing the general desire of different age groups to use the internet and "new" communication forms such as blogs, vblogs, etc..., and the fact (an unfortunate fact, IMO) that most of the woodworking base are older males, I'd guess that net forums actually represent a very small fraction of the overall WW community.

And for reasons I don't fully understand, those that do actively participate are inordinately interested in the lowest price possible for any given category. That tends to skew the discussion to the lowest priced manufacturer, which currently seems to be Grizzly. Those of us that consider buying at the lowest price point in a given category unwise are the rarity.

I have a SawStop, a Jet Jointer/Planer, and Jet Drum Sander, a gigantic Grizzly Bandsaw, and a shop full of Lie-Neilsen planes and chisels.

I would say that most people are like me. We're looking for the best VALUE. The Lie-Neilsen planes and chisels are clearly not the cheapest by any stretch of the imagination. To me, however, they're clearly the best value because they last forever and work perfectly right out of the box.

Grizzly happens to have really great value in almost every product they make. If you don't mind a rough finish some places where it doesn't matter, Grizzly's products are just really nice tools. Would I rather have a Laguna band saw? Wait....actually, no. I didn't like the Laguna. Well, I'm sure there's some band saw out there somewhere that I'd rather have, but I wouldn't have been willing to pay 3X the price for a marginally better saw.

[David Keller NC]

I have a SawStop, a Jet Jointer/Planer, and Jet Drum Sander, a gigantic Grizzly Bandsaw, and a shop full of Lie-Neilsen planes and chisels.

I would say that most people are like me. We're looking for the best VALUE. The Lie-Neilsen planes and chisels are clearly not the cheapest by any stretch of the imagination. To me, however, they're clearly the best value because they last forever and work perfectly right out of the box.

Grizzly happens to have really great value in almost every product they make. If you don't mind a rough finish some places where it doesn't matter, Grizzly's products are just really nice tools. Would I rather have a Laguna band saw? Wait....actually, no. I didn't like the Laguna. Well, I'm sure there's some band saw out there somewhere that I'd rather have, but I wouldn't have been willing to pay 3X the price for a marginally better saw.

John - I would suggest that you are the exception on 'net boards, not the rule. On just the L-N subject alone, there are frequent threads where the whole undercurrent of the discussion is "L-N tools are soooo expensive - $300 for a handplane is ridiculous!". And I've recently seen threads where the OP was opining that he'd like a L-N handplane, but the L-V model was "significantly cheaper" - in that case, all of $20.