[TheForge] Hossfeld benders and survival of the fittest.

[RIES NIEMI]

I have had a hossfeld for over 20 years now, and I have always looked for
used dies, but never found em. If you can get em used, more power to you.
However, I have spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on dies from
hossfeld, well over the thousand mark, so I have done my share to support
the company. Currently, I have an order in with american bender. I have yet
to receive it, but based on what I saw at LaCrosse, I think there are
reasons to buy from them. There is definitely an ethical quandary here-
American does not produce the whole line of hossfeld dies- they are cherry
picking the ones they think will sell the best. Theoreticaly, buying from
them could cause hossfeld to go under, and then you couldnt get the full
line of parts. On the other hand, hossfeld has done almost no innovation
since they started- the first thing I saw at the American booth was a clever
degree indicator which will make using the bender a whole lot easier. How
come hossfeld never thought of that? I have always found hossfeld to be
unresponsive to customer demand- they are very old fashioned in their
distribution system, for example. Hossfeld wouldnt sell me just the parts I
needed- I had to buy a bunch of stuff I didnt want to get what I did want.
American will sell you just the parts you need. American is designing new
dies and parts, based on customer feedback. Hossfeld intentionally distances
itself from its customers. As for the patent issue, I think if you go back
and look, you would find the hossfeld to be an improvement on traditional
benders manufactured by other companies since gone out of biz- not a new
idea sprung from whole cloth. Just as hossfeld improved and marketed better
in their time, American, JD and others are doing the same now.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Competition makes for better products,
not just lower prices.
By the way, Bill Wooley, I would heartily recommend you buy, from hossfeld,
as American does not make em, a 50B angle iron flange out die set. We use it
almost every day to pull circles and arcs from round, square, square tubing,
flat bar, and to edgebend flat bar. It is pricey, especially if you get a
whole set of radius dies from 4" up to about 36", but it is amazing how
quick and easy you can get repeatable curves in all kinds of material cold.
One of the most useful things a hossfeld can do. I also have a $7000 angle
roll, and I find the hossfeld can do 80% of what it can at a fraction of the
price.