Quality vs. price???

[Bibbyman]

Is there such a thing as a product that's too good?  How much quality are you willing to give up to save money?

I think of this every time I pick up one of the $2.00 tape measures we have around the mill.  They're miserable things to work with and they don't last long.  But we also have a couple of Sears Craftsman tapes that cost over $10 new (when we bought them years ago) and they work great.  When they break or just wear out,  you take them back and they give you a new one.  We must be on or third replacement.  So... What's the better bargain?

Lets say a basic mid-sized hydraulic bandmill of good quality, engineering, factory warrantee,  documentation, and free tech support,  quick availability of replacement part, cost $20,000.00.

Would you be willing to give up warrantee, documentation, tech support, and availability of replacement parts for say $1,000.00?

How about paint quality?  An industrial quality powder coat paint system is a major cost.  Would you rather have one that had just a flash coat of paint shot on thick and thin,  missed spots, runs, paint over weld slag, rust and dirt if the price was lowered $1,000.00?

How about compromise in construction?  The use of bolts through oversized holes instead of machined and hardened pins that are fitted through bushings with grease fittings?  The use of bushings instead of ball barrings?  The use of pillow block bushing instead of a wet bearing housing?  The use of plain, low-grade steel bolts and hardware instead of high grade plated hardware with locking provisions? The use of soft steel where hard steel should be used?  If it cut another $1,000.00 of the price?

What if the mill was not professionally engineered and backed up by product testing and development?  The builders not trained and qualified?  No quality inspection program?  If that would cut another $1,000.00.

How about if every corner was cut to the point where it was still able to function but without any consideration for safety or? Another $1,000.00?

So what I'm asking,  if you could get the same size, featured, and functional mill for $5,000.00 less,  would that be a temptation?

[Frickman]

My time's too valuable to be messing with junk. Two years ago I was in the market for a new round baler for the farm. I looked at every brand on the market and purchased a John Deere. Why? Quality. John Deere builds a quality machine and stands firmly behind it. After a week's use the salesman, who happens to be one of the best baler mechanics around, stopped by the farm to see how things were going. On his own time too. We were having some small problems with it, mostly with the automatic oiling system. He borrowed one of my hired men and my toolbox and worked an hour on the thing, fine tuning different things. No charge to me. Not too many of the off-brands of farm equipment will do this. You got to make hay when the sun shines so you have to have reliable equipment.

[ElectricAl]

Bib,

Those Craftsman Tapes are $14 each.

I have 2 for the sawmill. Linda has 2 for her edger plus we each have 2  spares.
I like the manual lock and Linda likes the lever lock.

The store is 45 miles away so when we break them they get tossed in my truck. When I get close to the store I'll stop.

Those little people get all flustered when I spill five broken tapes and parts on their counter. ;D

A tape will last me 30 to 60 days. Most of the paint is gone off the bottom of the tape, and it breaks around the 18" mark. Never past 36"

Linda can get several months out of hers.


We have 10 tapes total for the business. $150 up front but has not cost us sense ;)

[Kirk_Allen]

I promised myself years ago that if I cant buy the good stuff Im not buying 8)

I agree that you can pinch pennies and still get the job done but when it comes to my tools and sawmill stuff, I buy what I believe to be the best.

To many times in the past I have cussed myself for buying junk.

Whats tough now is that I want more stuff, and have to wait for the funds to buy it ;D

[iain]

$20k   you can haggle that down to $19k and still keep the package in most case's
you got to think of your time sorting crap out, even new things need sopport     the drop would hove to be a lot more than 2-3 thou,   i've built and repaired lots of machines in my time and looking back some should have been scapped as soon as they stopped, but then there is the feel good to rebuilding good gear, and the fact that some times it is only something small or quick to sort out
$1000 saved is 28hrs of down time plus non warranty parts to buy $1000 sounds like a lot but it dont buy much these days

[ADfields]

The way it's worded it's none but for me I look for the best "value" for my buck.   Giving up the factory warrantee for a grand would be nuts but there is a price point that I would do it.  I bet even Bibby would wave the warrantee to get a new loaded LT-70 for 20 grand, that would be a great value.   Am I right Bibby?  

Company "A" has a great tool at $20,000 and you will be completely set for 5 years with it.  As best as you can tell but you do know even the best tool can give troubles and have you down from time to time.

Company "B" has an ugly thing thats sold as is, hacked together some and is likely to have some bugs in it that will need worked out for $6,000.   It's nothing you want to show off to folks but will do what you need it to do quite well as best as you can tell.

Witch do you buy?   I think it will come down to money for a business.   Witch will be the better value to do the job that needs done by "that" business witch will very from one business to another.   Maybe you are Harold and can fix up that cheep one in a week or two or you could need to be working it today and cant mess with it.   Good example is hand tools, Snap-on is great stuff but more and more you see Craftsman in pro shops.   Craftsman is not as good as Snap-on but is a far better value for the buck. ;)
Andy

[Norm]

I find that equipment that has some blemish defects usually has plenty of other problems that are not cosmetic. I hate to work on equipment, I expect it to be engineered and built so it works day in and day out without alot of tweaking. Last thing I need to be doing is running for parts or making adjustments. We bought a third party loader for our JD tractor. 3 years later it has needed constant adjusting and parts replacement. The lower cost has been eaten up by down time, parts and labor on adjustments. Now it needs to be replaced. Thing that impressed me with mills were all the 20+ year old orange ones that had tons of hours and years of use and were still making good lumber. I didn't need a salesman to tell me what was good I could see it for myself. How much it's worth when you sell one used is another factor, every time I trade in a JD tractor I get almost if not more than I paid for it. I expect the same out of my mill, look at what the used ones are selling for. It tells you how good they are new.

[Neil_B]

I bought my mill, cause it was $15000 cheaper than the WM.
Never again will I look for the bargain machine after what I've been through with this one. I've spent well over that in replacement parts and downtime, not to mention lost sales because of it.

I bought a WM edger last October.  8)
Did get $600 of the price because it was a demo with 30hrs on it.

[woodbeard]

I am generally a cheap sob, and tend to buy used stuff. At this point in my life, I still like tinkering and fixing things. I learn a lot about the machinery that way. Also, I don't saw full time.
 That being said, if I were to commit to a new sawmill and make a living with it, I would not think twice about spending the full 20 grand. Even if it meant taking a hit on the financing. The better the quality and support, the quicker the equipment will pay for itself.

[duke401]

my dad allways said it only cost a little more to go 1st class, but in this day an age i dont know if it is possable.
duke

[raycon]

If I were going to making a living off of the piece of equipment I'd want the best piece of equipment my money could buy -- proven service/support would be worth the extra $$. Paint I'm color blind not an issue. Attention to detail rounded off sharp edges --minimal pinch points etc are signs of a quality product in my mind I'd pay extra for that as well. Problem is you need to own a fixer upper to know what you don't know...hindsight is 20/20 and you get what you pay for.

[slowzuki]

It was a good point brought up, it depends if you use the tool to make money.

If I need tool for one job, I don't run out and buy the most $$$ thing around.  I buy the one that gets the job done.

If I'm gonna use it all the time, I pay the $$$ to get one that will last.

If I'm gonna get one that will be loaned to people, I get the cheapest darn one there is cause it will come back broken no matter how good it is!

[Bibbyman]

Price has to be part of the evaluation of the purchase of a produce.  If product ABC balances out equal to XYZ,  then the one with the lower price would most likely be chosen.

Another thing to consider is how well a product holds it's value over the time you expect to use it.   I'd guess portable mills change hands about every five years.  Owner's retire (for the final time),  business take off and there is the need to upgrade.  Some quit the business and sale their mill.  

So I always consider the resale value of a major purchase. What I call the total owning cost is the first price minus what you could expect to recover when it's sold some time down the road.  In our study above,  the buyer of the $20,000.00 mill may well recover the additional cost on resale over the $15,000.00 mill that probably won't bring much in say 5 years.

Only problem with our Sears tapes is,  they tend to walk off.  Our youngest son tends to "borrow" anything he needs.  But I suspect maybe a customer or two have picked one up to measure something and forgot to put it back. >:(

Helper Brooke helps Mary measure logs.  One was "1 hour and 45 minutes" long the other day. :D

[KURT_STURZ]

Ray your right, you do generally get what you pay for. However if you have a Chevy budget and a Chevy will do, get a Chevy. A weekender who goes out and buys a $30K
LT40HD probably has more money than brains. Sure if its your livelyhood and you have the revenue to support it, than sure, go buy the LT40HD. Even then I think you'll struggle. Its like anything else, you get back what you put into it, and what you put into it is hard work.

[Rod]

$20,000.00 None  
 
$19,000.00 If no warrantee, documentation, tech support, etc.

 $1,000 seems like a lot of tech support.As for warrantee,thats only as good as the company that is giving the warrantee.If a company makes a good mill they don't really need a warrantee.

$18,000.00 If also poor paint and finish.

I could buy a lot of paint for $1,000
.
$17,000.00 If also corners were cut in manufactur  

That would depend on what they where cutting.But if it didn't make the mill less durable that then I don't see a problem.

$16,000.00 if also not engineered, tested, and built by trained builders  

Thats a loaded question.I'd have to see it run.


$15,000.00 If also all corners were cut to the point were it was unsafe  

Again,for $1,000 I could grind off the point that were unsafe 8)

[DR Buck]

A $20,000.00 item with no warranty, documentation, tech support, etc.  is not a $20,000.00 item.   Support is everything.  Documentation, spare parts and tech support is the difference in a quality item and a not so good item.  Would you buy a new truck that was never documented and has no available spare parts at all?   I think not!

[VA-Sawyer]

Bibby,
You need a button that says " $22,000 for same quality, but prefered color".  The real question is will people pay 10% more to get what appears to be the same quality from a bigger name?  ;)
VA-Sawyer

[Bibbyman]

VA,  

Sometimes I think it may just work the other way.  When we got started sawing back in 94 there was one small band sawmill owner in our area that did custom sawing.  He also had a solar kiln, sold lumber and had an extensive woodwork shop.  He had the market cornered.

After we had our mill for about a year,  I got around to stopping in to visit with him.  Announced right off who I was and we had a mill south of town.  He said he'd heard of me.(He should have,  half of his custom sawing customers were now coming to us.)  We talked about an hour.

He said when he was looking into a band mill there wasn't too many choices.  He drove to Indy and knew right off when he walked into the big office building with hardwood paneling and woodwork that it wasn't the mill for him. Too big of a company.  Too much overhead.  Said everyone was friendly and spent the day showing him the mills and demoing them.  

He later learned of a band mill that was being built by the Amish or Mennonites somewhere in Iowa or Wisconsin.  He went up to visit them and was impressed to find it was a family business that filled in between farming and making other farm equipment.  He bought their mill.

I did have occasion to see some of the lumber he produced.  It was by far the most atrocious I've ever seen come off any mill of any type or brand.  Well could have been the sawyer's fault but he was a skilled craftsman at building all kinds of fine woodwork so I can't see how he could be so bad at running a sawmill.

His custom sawing customers started to gravitate to us. They all had stories to tell of the lumber produced by the other guy and all were amazed at the accuracy of the lumber coming off our mill.  He'd really given band mills a bad name.

I'm sure if he had it to do over again,  he would make the same decision.  

[Haytrader]

The inmates at the prison where I have been selling ERC can't beleive how little planeing the lumber takes. Seems the guy they were getting it from didn't bring them as good of quality of lumber.
Mine, a little $6000 manual mill made one at a time with no manual to read.
Their previous source, orange.
I have been by the guys place and it looks like he doesn't get around to everything he means to. Not sure which mill he has as I didn't get out due to the fact he was not there. I think it was a 40.
I am not much more than a hobby sawyer  but I try to buy quality that I can pay for. Hate payments. Fancy never impresses me.
I say that, and I just traded for a new Tahoe last weekend and I didn't have much over half.
Is that talkin outa both sides of my mouth?

 ;D

[Wes]

I'd build it myself before I would pay someone else for shoddy work.

[doublecutusa]

When I'm spending that kind of $ on anything, quality has got to be up if not at the top, then 2nd.  On a situation as this, quality and safety go very hand in hand to my point of view; especially considering it would be nice to KEEP both your hands...attached to your arms and not the mill that is. :D

[AtLast]

Id have to agree with VA.....Its sorta like blue jeans...you can buy Levis or you can buy JC Penny....both are equally good but youll pay more for the Levis simply because they are Levis.

Saying 1 brand is " better " than another typically comes down to personal preference. You obviousally have to draw the line somewhere but its useally easy enuf to see which is a good product and which is not.

[Duane_Moore]

 ???lets see, buy a new Chevy or a used Cadillac, can't answer that? well both in good shape,both do the job,both have good dealers. Cad. better paint,better engine,more comfort, both same price, the Cad will resale better, last longer,  Bibbyman, bet you drive a Cad? Me to.  Duh---Duane

[Bibbyman]

Nope. Not even close :D


94 Buick Roadmaster with every option.

[slowzuki]

I agree,  :D I can do my own shoddy work!

I'd build it myself before I would pay someone else for shoddy work.