The latest ingenious new tool from The Small Shop is this little Nutter!

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Looks interesting......
Just wondering Vinnie----
what size are the nuts and rivets it makes?......
Or did I miss it????

Dave! It's there in the text......been there all along.... :-)

Vinnie

"I must learn to drink morning/wakeup coffee before reading and responding"....
"I must learn to drink morning/wakeup coffee before reading and responding"....
"I must learn to drink morning/wakeup coffee before reading and responding"....
:-) :-)

Naw! I've had a bad day myself.....I snuck it in there when I saw your post.... :-)

Vinnie

Thanks for sharing, Vinnie. It looks like a really neat gadget.

I see is sells for 65 quid... would you consider it expensive? Or is it good value for money?

I ask simply because if I convert it to ZAR, it comes to about R738.91(excl postage).... which for me is about the same price as a small compressor - or a tonne of kits...

Rudi

I was really keen on this tool and was just about to go search for it around here (NZ) but after seeing the price.....my heart sank so fast, i feel like im heartbroken.

It is relatively expensive. However, it's price compares well with other punch and die sets on the market, even being slightly cheaper in some cases. If you find yourself using a lot of rivets or nuts......it's worth it. These kind of tools.......the hold and fold, the brass assist.....are not tools you use all the time. However, when you have to use them, you'll find them worth their weight in gold! Having said that, some people will always find them too expensive, it's the market economy I'm afraid.

Vinnie

A real nice tool and a nice review however as far as it being "a must-have for every serious scratchbuilder and master maker" I think not!

cheers
Cliff

Well I think yes.....purely for the time saved. However, each to their own, and if somebody would prefer to sit there for hours making rivets.....good luck!

Vinnie

$120 for a tool is a lot- especially, when Evergreen sells rivet shaped rods for $2.
Nevertheless, there are more ridiculously priced things out there- like Hobbyfan and Accurate Armor resin stuff.

Look.....I'm sorry but I feel I have to take issue with people saying the price is ridiculous.....expensive, yes......but not ridiculous. It's a tool that probably cost an awful lot to develop, and let's face it....we're a small market so they're probably not going to sell in their thousands are they? High development cost + small production = high end price.

Vinnie

Hi Vinnie.
............thinks!!!!!! ---get club to buy out of funds -----every body get use----if you in club-----bit difficult on IPMS big A :-) ---oh the postage on "pass the "nutter"parcel :-) :-) --Sorry--my sense of humour again---"Hospital food "again??
aye
BARV
(GOSMG)

Steve, seriously....thats a damn good idea! A club could easily get together and buy one for communal use. Nice one! :-)

Vinnie

Yes guys that is the way to go! Personally I would find £65 difficult to justify, but if the tool was available in a club, each member stumping up a quid or so makes far more sense. You could have a Club Nutter!!! (is this like a village idiot?!). Recently I had to do some work on one of my bikes for which I HAD to have £100+ worth of special tools (had no choice the job was quite impossible without them), but borrowed them from the club for the postage cost, so it works.

Yep--me again................
"Q"....Derek......can any "tin-foil" be used with this tool....ie....cake cartons---take-away trays ..etc--------------- just curious
aye
BARV
(GOSMG)

Aw Steve........it says in the review.....you cannot use ordinary foil. It will simply split.

Vinnie

As someone (who despite years of resistance) has, only today, spent 70 + Euros on a 'five-speed' hold and fold, the truth is, I can understand the need for these items. Last week, I got Voyager's set for the Emil. No it isn't a few grilles, it's a damned serious PE set, which frankly needs a serious solution. As, I can imagine, is the 'Nutter' serious tools, may I suggest, for serious modelling?..Jim

Well unless someone posted that and it was then deleted where in this thread or either of the other 2 about this thing has anyone said the price is ridiculous? Even if someone did, that's their opinion, and last time I checked everyone is entitled to their own opinion if it's not flaming someone.
The Nutter looks like a very nice tool, well made and easy to use, but it's also an expensive tool. Add to that the need to mail-order a "special" foil every time you run out, and unfortunately there's a lot of us out here who consider ourselves to be serious modelers who will pass on this one and continue to make our rivets or nuts and bolts another way, even if it does take longer.

Regards,
Mike

If I may gents, just some info to assist.

On the foil, what you get lasts ages, we estamate that with care, you will get about 8-10 thousand .5mm rivets or nuts from one sheet. Sheets are only £3.50. You could waste nearly as much plastic card as you cannot punch as close to each other.
This depends on you plastic sheet cost but is a factor.

Even when full with little holes, you can rub it flat and use the old foil for lens reflectors. So no waste.
Make 20 lens's and you nearly save the cost in replacment ones..

On the investment...err I should say so.
The special foil costs alone very nearly sank the whole project as that was the most critcal.

As is often the case, my order was both priced by the meter but had to be a minimium amount as the mill would/could only do that much and no smaller !!
I have a metric tonne in my garage in a special frame !!!!.. Added to that it had to be transported across the EU, not cheep either !! gezz that one stung as I did not expect it at least I wont run out

Micro milling in short runs down to 0.2mm is also a rather exspensive process. One off, Ok, but to ensure the tips do not break every time (well most , we loose up to 20% production on the 0.5mm nut !!) you have to have the best machines, put it this way, I said "HOW much and hour !!" and fell over

I can make no excuses for the price, however it is not a cheep tool I compleatly agree. It is however of very good quality which is costly to achive..
Like a lot of things, it only really works because every thing works together, and only if each part matches a critical spec.

With out high production standards and a certain "no compramise" attatude that drives the factory mad at times, this type of product would not work or last.
I always try to make only the very best, this natrally prevents some with limmits on budgets from obtaining out tools.
I regret this a lot.
We will have trouble reducing the inital set costs however as the tool develops and more probes come on line, we have the ankor dot system next, , we know the tool will, pro rata, become far more cost effective if not cheeper.
This was a basic design factor and we intend to offer a s many options as fast as we can.

So no, not just a simple , easy cheep thing at all, in fact a rather expensive and risky bit of delelopment. To be totally honest if I were not influanced by my personal modeling hobby (obsession is always close), I really do not think I would of launched this new tool.
Most certainly, in my old marketing roles I would not touch the margins on it .


Sorry to but in chaps, a bit of inside can help with the "why" at times, I hope no offence caused.

Alasdair
The Small Shop EU.

Thanks Vinnie. That's the kind of answer I was looking for.

After making my above post, I had a chance to think over a cup of coffee and a smoke....

Now I know that "expensive" and "affordable" are relative terms, but here's how I see it...

You know.... R738.91 (65 GBP) is NOT that much.... and here's how I justify (for lack a better term) the cost of this tool.... it's only 3 tanks of petrol - I'll just take a bus... it's only 7 cases of beer - I guess I need to cut back on that anyway :-)... I recently spend almost R200 on a Riffler (a file that looks like a dentist's tool) and didn't bat an eyelid... it's not even 2 "golden circle" tickets to the forthcoming Robbie Williams concert - too bad for SWMBO, I don't dig him anyway :-) :-) and I've got a dozen more of these little "justifications"....

Point is, when you you really sit down and think about it, and you do have that disposable income.... it's NOT really that much for a highly specialist tool that people have invested in greatly to engineer and produce...

Now I certainly don't expect anyone to agree with me on my view, as we're all entitled to our own.... this is just my take on it.... my 0.02ZAR

Rudi

I feel like this whole issue on price was my doing so for that i do apologize however i definitely DONT think its ridiculous.

As i have managed to survived through life with a few bolts short, i definitely can continue to do so without losing anymore. However for those that replace bolts on a more frequent basis, this tool certainly is worth the money when used frequently. Its always about quality not just quantity.

After all, on a similar token, i forked out about NZ$180 for the Tamiya airbrush which might have been expensive at first but was well worth every cent with the improvement in paint quality.

Quality before quantity i say!

Btw, i forgotten to thank Vinnie for sharing this piece of news. I can understand how frustrating it can be sometimes when you share some news with good intentions only to get nit picked by others.

Will be ordering my later,HWMBO is buying it for me for xmas(well its going on her card!!!!!).
I bought a hold and fold from them at Euro earlier this year and the quality is superb
Andy