Veritas Tools Canada #2
Veritas Tools Canada #2
What would you do if I told you that the design team at Veritas spend time thinking seriously about special tools for people of small stature? How about getting youngsters back in the woodshop? It’s a serious issue for me and for people like Veritas. The staff at Veritas care genuinely about schools and programs that can help identify the need and ways to develop programs to get hands-on woodworking into the hands present and future generations.
A lot goes on behind the scenes with this Canadian company of toolmakers. There’s a human element of care and carefulness, of orderliness in the workplace and much more. As I walked through the manufacturing facility I was grateful for the way people looked, well, well cared for. I felt thankful that a domestic Canadian company like this was not only existing but also pursuing levels of workmanship that set the industry standard on many levels and in the lives of so many people.
Imagine that the staff at Veritas are driving to their local workshop to work. That they walk into work as Canadians and are making such fine products. This isn’t simply accidental but a carefully orchestrated work evolving through well thought through processes of creativity. Coupled with the design and engineering capabilities is the humanity of living care. Here people are able to live and work side by side perfecting metal to create a product that surpasses all others. I never did think that Veritas planes and tools were overly high in cost because I also knew that even before I visited their facility, how they made their products demanded great attention to detail and this must be paid for.
As a close to this blog, and to qualify what I just said, I think I can give an example that will help. In 1965 I bought a Stanley 4 ½ plane. I paid £3.50 for it new. That’s $4.50 by today’s standard bit it was a lot more back then. My way for 46 hours was £3.50 – a week’s wage. The plane I bought in no way came close to the standards of Veritas. Stanley had recouped their investment a million times over in that they had been producing that plane for 100 years. We young apprentices then never thought that a week’s wage for a plane was excessive. We just bought it, fettled it for an hour and used it for a lifetime. Veritas planes, and their other tools, are excellent value for money.