Many eBay sellers including Fettlebox and BernieDawg sell there products both directly to the public and through eBay. Ebay only gets upset when a private deal is made for the exact item posted on their site thereby cutting them out of their take. There's no problem selling one wrench on eBay and another wrench directly. There are fees involved with selling on eBay that you avoid in a direct transaction. Therefore it's sometimes a little cheaper to buy direct. I still prefer to use eBay most of the time for the convenience and protections eBay provides. However, for the price conscious it's nice to have the direct option. Ben
Seems to me this was an excellent post to introduce a hopefully affordable penta tool that should be available thru fettlebox as an alternative to current bd penta tool (the 2 tools, then, closer to apples & apples). NOW a different tool may be offered (apples & oranges). There's no indicator of price range (nor should there be yet) for the tool above or whatever rendition is offered. No one wants it to be expensive. I sense comments Ken vs Stan and almost seems to originate from COST vs market PRICE (production crew vs sales staff). A successful venture has to bow to both cost & price. Re "Hopefully, they'll be affordable". Stan, surely one can hope and we shall see. On plus side Ray wants them to be affordable. Count me among members not miffed by "hopefully affordable" comment. Affordable, cheap, expensive... well, that all depends. Sadly for our friends up north, Canada Post prices kill ALOT of deals. There are fees due upon delivery also? even worse yet. re Ken's "A good tool is worth the expense of a craftman making it." ok fine if you say so BUT but that expense, a cost over run, can also spell THE END of any venture. re Ken's "Just for the sake of accuracy. I got an email..." Stan took exception to this. imo Ken it was NOT about accuracy, you could have said "This just in, BD offers a cheaper price for Canadians!" You and others are doing BD's bidding, you deny it and may not see it that way yourself but here I don't see it any other way as you're middle man promoting sales of BD product. The "for the sake of accuracy" implies Stan was not accurate, he was accurate (for the sake of accuracy). I checked ebay listing the moment Stan posted it and I found Stan was absolutely perfectly accurate, flawless, and he was clearly explaining the ebay offering (no surprise to me he defended his comment). AND it WAS HELPFUL to accurately explain total price detail to his fellow Canadians. I thank him and not criticize him (more) and baseless in this instance. Canadian price detail also does happen to emphasize how expensive the bd tool is, a valid point I expect Stan stands by. thx omc
You seem to have forgotten Sweden in the above list - That's were THE item originally came from: The stove... /Odd
Yes I did, and I do not know how I could have missed that. Maybe because it is so ubiquitous to what we do. My apologies to all the Scandinavians. Ken in NC OMC No comment. (Well, actually I deleted it)
Thanks for the insightful post Ross. I’m writing this to clarify my position on past and future posts. To explain where I come from and also to continue my 30 years of helping people make their way into our world as painless as possible, I admit it , I can’t help it, as my wife says education as a way of life has totally invaded my genes. I have a rich and wonderful life. Both my wife of 45+ years and I enjoy good health, an incredibly good loving, respectful and stimulating relationship, as we both do with our three extremely successful (each in their own way) adult children and our three, somewhat spoiled (not because of us) grandchildren. Money and “things” have nothing at all to do with our richness, as we have little of either. A few years ago we came into a modest amount of money, enough for us to be able to buy a nice new truck if we wished, but instead we chose to carefully budget it toward 4 international trips to explore the world. Something we had dreamed about for decades. We decided to do it while our health would allow because you never know when there’s a bus with your name on it out there, waiting for you to step off a curb somewhere. We had to travel on a “budget” using local bus transportation mostly, eating street food instead of restaurant fare, and staying in budget, sometimes “iffy” youth hostels because that was the only way we could do it. We consider that money extremely well spent as an investment in our life’s education because what we saw and experienced has convinced us that we have a truly wonderful life here in Canada. We have clean water to drink, good healthy food to eat if we choose, modern, safe, reliable infrastructure such as good roads, safe sewers, nice friendly (most of the time) police forces and public transportation systems. Not to mention unlimited opportunities for our children and grandchilren. When we got married and decided to have kids, we sat down and decided to forego trying to amass a fortune for our retirement and instead always have one parent at home to provide a safe, nuturing environment for our children. We knew it would mean we would never have a lot of money to spend on fancy cars, monster homes with swimming pools, designer clothes and becoming patrons of fancy restaurants. And despite careful planning such as putting 25% of my income away into a retirement plan, it’s only a partial plan providing enough for the basics only. We have, for our entire marriage discussed each and every expenditure we make even down to a $10 bunch of stove gaskets. Not because we are keeping track, but so if the other one has a plan to buy something we can compromise and or wait until next month. As both of us are children of parents who lived through the great depression in the 1930s, this all came naturally. So now you know where I am coming from and why when someone calls me cheap, it bothers me. I have nothing at all against anyone who is in the position to spend lots of money on their stoves and lanterns. Go for it, just don’t look down your nose and call me names because I can’t. Stan
Thank you Stan. My late mom was frugal when she could have had nicer things after dad passed. Money has passed to my brother and I. Except for more stoves, life is the same except for eating out once a week since I stayed with mom during the work week the last 9 years up to when she passed away and no longer have home cooking. My retirement is set, hope I can loosen up the wallet and do things you have. Visit Alaska again, Sweden and Norway maybe, Canada. Hard to change your spending habits built up over the years of not having much to blow. Duane
Oops sorry , meant Norway ! Never was much good at Geography Not much good at maths neither Edit: missed your post Stan, what a touching post, thanks for sharing it with us
@Longilily Good Morning, Yes, it was a brass penta screw, regular SRV from a SVEA 123 fuel tank cap. It seemed stuck fast, so I wrapped a bit of leather around the edges of the cap, grasped it with channel-locks, and put some muscle behind the wrench. I felt "something" give, and thought it was the SRV. But, in turned out to be the wrench. I can post a photo of the wrench, if you would like to see the tip. The tool is made of steel, which perplexed me, no end, when the bit torqued and twisted. Take care, and God Bless! Doc
I can understand a steel tool "shaft or handle" bending when torque is applied to it if the shaft is too skinny or too small. Some of the brass fixtures I've had to free up took a lot of torque to do the job. What I can't understand is why a steel tool "tip", would have to be "hardened" to keep it from wearing when it's used exclusively on brass. Stan
Morning, Guys, Yes, it sounds odd, does it not!? Here are photos of the wrench, with twisted tip, and the offending fuel cap on which I used it. You will see that the brass SRV screw actually blew apart whilst I was trying to remove it! The spring inside looks either rusty, or has some sort of sealant on it. Judge for yourselves, but the photos shows what happened. So, there you have it, Folks. I have NO idea why the tip of the wrench twisted like that, but as you can see, it most certainly did. The wrench still works, but I'm never going to "lean" on it again. I figured, "Brass against steel...... Steel wins". But, in this case, though the SRV screw was destroyed, the steel was injured in the battle, too. Take care, and God Bless! Every Good Wish, Doc
Doc, you said initially about that mishappening that the tool was not tempered properly. That might be the case, i.e. that it had been over tempered and thus "soft" again. It can also just simply be a case of bad hardening. Mind you, it's tricky business to get a perfect job when hardening and tempering. It's to get the balance between the two procedures that might fail. I would say that a tool like this is better a bit "soft" than too much hardened. If hardened to some tool standard, it would probably have shattered instead in your case. But somewhere in between (i.e. correct) would of course have been the best.
Hi, Odd, and Ken, I'd say you were probably right. Why would someone use Loc-tite (red) on an SRV screw!!!??? I'd say, if ANY such sealant was needed, it should be the blue version, which is easy to "break" with a proper tool, without breaking the brass screw!! Oh, well. Maybe someday, I can find a replacement SRV screw, and put this cap back into action. Until then, it will sit in my parts caddy, as a reminder of what happened. First time, for me..... as all other SRV's that I've serviced popped right out, without a single problem. Take care, and God Bless! Every Good Wish, Doc P.S. Christer, I saw your post after having sent this. I think you are onto something in your comments. Thank you for your thoughts. On the money, I'd say.
Thanks Doc. By the way, on the subject on missing a new post while composing, there is a function on this new forum which alert you if someone has posted a new post in the topic while you are composing one yourself. This alert is a bit too subtle though. It's very easy to miss. But if you notice the alert, it's a good tool since you realize that there has been some additional post(s) during the time from you starting to compose until you post, and you can check that (them) out before clicking on the button to post your own message.
