We are about to start offering pre-sale opportunities for the Gramercy Tools Treadle Lathe. It has been a three year long haul, but we are finally ready. Our shop is manufacturing parts and our aluminum fabricator is getting ready to make the frames.
This means we will be formally establishing the process for taking $500 refundable deposits to reserve a lathe at a pre-sale price. The pre-sale purchase price will be $3,400. We expect to be able to deliver the lathes by the end of the year. The $3,400 is a little below the retail list price, which will go to $3,600 when the lathe is in production. What the deposit does it get you in the queue. When we are ready to ship the lathe, we will contact you for the balance. If at that time you decide to delay or not proceed with your purchase, we will refund your $500. If we don’t deliver the lathe by the end of 2025, you are welcome to cancel your pre-order and get a refund.
In the next few days we will be updating the website with more information and details on the pre-sale please see the website. This is a complicated machine and as is standard for big machines, shipping will be extra.
The real point of this blog post is to share this video of Alan Dorsey using the lathe. Alan, a professional turner and wood turning teacher whom many of you met at Hand Works in Amana, has extensive experience with our lathe prototypes. Here is also has interesting insights on the difference between power and treadle turning. Both good, but different.
In other news:
After 38 years together, my friends Ken and Mike of the company Jorgensen Carr, cabinet makers extraordinaire, are retiring and closing up shop. First of all a hearty congratulations to them because 38 years in a small business, especially a woodworking business, is quite an achievement. The fact that they are still talking to each other is amazing.
I've known Ken since he was the teaching assistant when I studied woodworking with Maurice Fraser back in the 80s. When I first needed shop space for my own woodworking, the fledgling Jorgensen Carr company rented me some bench space. One of the big lessons I learned from them was that you should be able to trust your equipment. So when you set a miter fence to 45° and made a cut it was 45°. When you set your table saw to 2-3/8, it was 2-3/8. Ken also impressed upon me the need to make sure your equipment is maintained so you're not fighting your environment.
Typically when a big shop closes, you hire an auctioneer to sell off the stuff - machines big and small. Hand tools of all types. Wood. It's always a little sad when a great shop closes, but auctions are the way the next generation gets started. Jorgensen Carr is no different. Their auction is in a week or so and you can see the details here. Auctions can be a great way to get big equipment and/or round out equipment needs. You may note that the Festool tools include some items that are now discontinued, like the CT 22 vacuum, but we still sell bags for this vac because there are plenty of them still doing their jobs in shops across the country, even though they haven't been offered by Festool for many years. A shout-out to our customer Austin who is always looking for a chance to buy an ETSEC sander used, but "no one ever sells an ETSEC, even when shops close," because no one likes to part with this tool.
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