Delta, what Happened

[Steven Seligman]

I must have been asleep at the wheel, I went to the delta site looking for a 31-269 pneumatic sanding drum for my 6x48-12dia sander and it looks like they are on life support. No, machines, no accessories nothing nada zip zero caput

[Kent A Bathurst]

You sure about that?

http://www.deltamachinery.com/

[Grant Wilkinson]

What site are you on? This one seems to be full of stuff

http://www.deltamachinery.com/

[glenn bradley]

You sure about that?

http://www.deltamachinery.com/

Yep. The Delta we all knew and loved is no more. Parts for almost any legacy machine you have are scarce if not just plain unavailable:

delta dead.JPG

Parts for my Delta machines are in the "just plain unavailable" category but, I was able to make some and fake others. One painful aspect of the current point in this sad history is that many sellers websites still show parts as available. Several times I was given hope only to have it dashed a couple weeks later when the order hit the warehouse and the cupboard was found to be bare.

The new Delta offers a few machines and is trying to carry the badge forward.

[Steven Seligman]

If you dig thru the site it is just really cheap big box store table top stuff for the most part. Only thing left is the unisaw.

[Joe Jensen]

Delta fell to the disease of the cheap consumer. Most people stopped being willing to pay ANYTHING more for quality and Delta had to choose to either compete with the Taiwanese and later Chinese tools or to go up after the more commercial market. They choose the worst possible plan, build the same Chinese tools, put their valuable brand name on them and then sell at a premium. That worked for a few years but eventually customers figure out that Delta is the same as Griz and they stop paying anything for the Delta name. The valuable Delta brand loses it's value and here we are. Powermatic and Jet have survived IMHO because they have innovated a lot and they have a ton of new machines. A lot of Powermatic and Jet machines are the same as the Griz but there are others that are better.

[Greg Woloshyn]

Delta fell to the disease of the cheap consumer. Most people stopped being willing to pay ANYTHING more for quality and Delta had to choose to either compete with the Taiwanese and later Chinese tools or to go up after the more commercial market. They choose the worst possible plan, build the same crap Chinese tools, put their valuable brand name on them and then sell at a premium. That worked for a few years but eventually customers figure out that Delta is the same as Griz and they stop paying anything for the Delta name. The valuable Delta brand loses it's value and here we are. Powermatic and Jet have survived IMHO because they have innovated a lot and they have a ton of new machines. A lot of Powermatic and Jet machines are the same as the Griz but there are others that are better.

I agree with this 100%.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

American Motors of WoodWorking

[Peter Kelly]

Delta fell to the disease of the cheap consumer.

I'd say corporate greed and mismanagement probably had more to do with it.

[Mel Miller]

Delta fell to the disease of the cheap consumer.

I agree. Too many consumers make their buying decisions based on the cheapest price rather than high quality. Places like HF and the box stores are selling crappy tools, etc. for less, and cheap consumers are stepping up and buying them.
How many threads have we seen where someone has bought a cheap imported tool only to discover it's basically junk? Then, they make excuses for their cheapness by saying the tool is "good enough for what I need it for" or something along that line.

[Rick Potter]

I didn't know they dropped the 14" band saw for one that looks like a Grizzly. The spindle sander looks like the Griz/Jet, but the surprise to me is that they still sell an edge sander that looks like my 10 or so year old one.

They are obviously sourcing most of their stuff from the usual Chaiwan sources.

[Phil Thien]

I'd say corporate greed and mismanagement probably had more to do with it.

I agree. There are plenty of purveyors of high-end woodworking tools. Management rode the Delta name all the way to the bottom.

[Steven Seligman]

Delta fell to the disease of the cheap consumer. Most people stopped being willing to pay ANYTHING more for quality and Delta had to choose to either compete with the Taiwanese and later Chinese tools or to go up after the more commercial market. They choose the worst possible plan, build the same Chinese tools, put their valuable brand name on them and then sell at a premium. That worked for a few years but eventually customers figure out that Delta is the same as Griz and they stop paying anything for the Delta name. The valuable Delta brand loses it's value and here we are. Powermatic and Jet have survived IMHO because they have innovated a lot and they have a ton of new machines. A lot of Powermatic and Jet machines are the same as the Griz but there are others that are better.

This is a major pain, if something breaks looks like we are totally screwed. it doesn't look like there is any path to parts for legacy equipment to speak of. ugh.


I have 1982 pm90 lathe and 1976 PM95 scroll saw that I can still order parts from Jet. I guess this debacle is in part the result of the DE Walt - PC deal (another crime). looks like the company is being "run" by bean counters now. It take true talent to screw up a company this bad, what a shame, absolutely blows my mind.

RIP

[Keith Pleas]

I bought a Delta scroll saw recently - works perfectly and has several design improvements over the "old" version which was a rebadge of the Dewalt. Hey, it's not earth shaking but went in knowing that they weren't the company they were 30 years ago. Then again, I'm not really as fit as I was 30 years ago either.

[John Sincerbeaux]

Just another company that fell to the "Walmartization" of America.