Official Luthiers Forum!

Say what you will about Stew Mac's prices, but their customer service is outstanding. I sent them an e-mail yesterday about a chip in my binding router bit. This morning I got an e-mail saying my order has shipped...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Yeah, imagine that, excellent customer service! Always great to hear too Steve.

Now about Stew-Mac's prices it may surprise some of you to hear that many of us who work in the trade do not at all consider Stew-Mac to be high priced.

First it's not easy being Stew-Mac and participating in a market that has two very different groups as prospective clients, perhaps three.

You have the snot-nosed, heavy metal vomit music folks (me, I'm not judgmental.... ) who want a tool to install their $25 orange drop, "vintage" cap and they want that tool to be free or cost less than $2.00. They may not be sure why they need the $25 "vintage" cap but someone on some forum who was also likely compensating (there I go being judgmental again..... ) for other inadequacies proclaimed that these caps are the bees knees....

Then you have the hobbyist builders who are still smarting from the idea that although you can build a D-18 look-alike with decent results for $400 no one ever told them that they need $2,000 worth of tools, many specialized to do so....

And then there are the folks in the trade taking in many instruments daily (hopefully completing and delivering many instruments daily too....) who view good tools as money makers, liability limiters, and capability enhancers. These folks are not as price sensitive and in my opinion are not the ones who consider Stew-Mac to be high priced.

From another view too let's face it many of the special tools that Stew-Mac designs and or sources and possibly manufacturers might have a life-time total market of 200 units. Ever source production goods and services. If so and I suspect that you and most have we all know that there is one price for one, another price for 100 and yet another price for 200. At the end of the day though the 200 number is not a large run for anyone and these costs have to be passed on to customers if we want to have Stew-Mac around to serve us in the future.

And yet another area for this same topic is the quality of Stew-Mac stuff. It's holds up well to daily use and as such may be over kill for the one time user of say a reamer for bridge pins. But to industry pros we appreciate that if we lay out $50 for a reamer that reamer will still be sharp and serving us well ten years from now. Amortize our 1,217 times that we use the tool in it's life over that $50 and Stew-Mac is not at all expensive, far from it.

Since Dave and I are going to produce the laser guided, vacuum clamped "Collins Saddle Mill" or "CSM" we are experiencing in real time first hand how very expensive it is to source parts, quality parts, have custom metal machining done both for prototypes and production units. This stuff IS expensive! We are only attempting to produce one product for now, Stew-Mac produces just how many products...?

So I've always been a Stew-Mac fan and likely will always be one too. We are lucky to have them, their customer service is second to none, the pricing in my view is very good for the value received, and most of all it's the very fine folks, the people at Stew-Mac who make the difference.

For me Stew-Mac is a highly trusted, very valued supplier that I feel fortunate to have available to me.

+1 hesh. agree with your detailed excellent analysis 100%

If you want a screwdriver set, some glue, or tape or something like that, they are indeed MASSIVELY overpriced.

If you want an 18 long aluminum radius beam machined exactly that you are going to use constantly on refrets for customers, and it's a money maker for you, StewMac is the only place to get one from, and $150 (cost of part plus shipping) is not expensive at all in that case.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

You and me Ernie my brother!

By the way it's been awhile since you told me one of your excellent jokes?

If your looking for a deal on screwdrivers I have about 250 of them suckers. Loose 'em and buy more then find 'em. Do that for about 50 years and you wind up with lot's of skewdivers. +1 for Stew Mac

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I'm still being smart about it though, some of the heavier Stewmac items such as vises have local (in Taiwan anyways) sellers who sells it at half the cost of Stewmac, and no high shipping cost to contend with either. Some stuff you can make yourself, others you just have to bite the bullet.

The Stewmac fret cutter is easily the best tool I have ever used. Makes cutting frets a snap.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Placed a order with stew mac and paid on paypal ... went back 10 min later and tried to add .. they said no can do on paypal order , so i ordered the other items and they shipped them at a $3.00 shipping cost to help me ... StewMac gets a 10 in my book !

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

My first purchase from them was probably around 1993 or so. God willing I'll still be buying things in another 20 years. There website is also very useful and full of good information.

+1 about Stewmac service!

I'm just an amateur builder, but I like their tools very much, and I don't think that the tools they make which are very specialized are not so expensive.
Of course, you can find screwdrivers, saws, etc.. cheaper somewhere else.
I had several contacts with Stewmac customer service.
Last year, I ordered the big Carruth scraper, and they made mistake and sent me the small one.
They immediately shipped me the big scraper for free by DHL (I live in France, shipping prices are expensive), and they told me that I did not have to return the small scraper, I could keep it..
Best customer service I've ever seen!

If you want to hear more loofier jokes hesh , you need to call.Did I mention the customer from india that wanted the violin bow at half price?. Not trying to insult east indians , he was very adamant..I in my cool calm way, tried to reassure him that he was getting a good deal. on a bow for his son. Finally exasperrated I pulled out the keys to the store/shop. He looked puzzled and bewildered.I said no problem. at the price he offered me for the bow .I offered to let him run the store to see if he could make a living?/ I think he got my point and poneyed up the correct amount.He left smiling and did return occassionally.