The Ries Tripods business status thread

[Greg]

IMHO Luland is Ries' competition, at least for heads.

Own and use both... will post a comparison.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, Mitutoyo is certainly a worthy rival to Starrett. They offer a serious line of industrial microscopes too. I and one other person set up the first (or tie for the first) Makita showroom in the US, back when it was entirely industrial quality. Their best products are made in southern Japan, in the US near Atlanta, and in Germany. But they too have their own dedicated factories in China which operate on a quite different basis than the proverbial outsourcing model. But a fair amount of counterfeit Makita does get into this country, made by the usual suspects in China, and sold by the usual suspects here.

I've been in face to face discussions with up to a dozen Makita engineers at a time. They'd bring along junior ones as part of their training; but those less experienced individuals would only be granted assignments relative to cheap Home Center tools. Just a couple hours ago I was using a miniature sliding miter saw made in Japan which I commissioned from them in the first place and sold many of, which is ten times better built than the version they now make in China, and would easily cost over a thousand dollars today. They had all kinds of wonderful specialty things like that, sold only a handful of places in the US, which went out of production once the Fukushima disaster dramatically elevated the price of energy in Japan. Manufacture involves a lot of variables, some of them unpredictable.

[Vaughan]

I think it would be worthwhile for Ries to incorporate QR plates into the A and J heads, similar to what Luland has.

IMHO they could go one better than Luland and innovate by making the top a panorama plate with quick release clamp. My preferred method of operation is to get the top plate level so I can adjust composition by panning the camera around. The current heads only have pan on the bottom of the head.

[Drew Wiley]

Given the extra fuss and careful machining of insetting quality levels alone into the top, that would add hundreds of dollars more to any such head. Given their present trouble with just threading, it would be quite a reach. It doesn't sound like they have a serious machinist on staff, or even sufficient payroll for one.

[Michael R]

Yeah I think Mitutoyo gauge blocks are top of the line. Not like these wooden tripods people think are great just because 100 years ago Morley Baer said they were the best lol.

Yeah, Mitutoyo is certainly a worthy rival to Starrett. They offer a serious line of industrial microscopes too. I and one other person set up the first (or tie for the first) Makita showroom in the US, back when it was entirely industrial quality. Their best products are made in southern Japan, in the US near Atlanta, and in Germany. But they too have their own dedicated factories in China which operate on a quite different basis than the proverbial outsourcing model. But a fair amount of counterfeit Makita does get into this country, made by the usual suspects in China, and sold by the usual suspects here.

I've been in face to face discussions with up to a dozen Makita engineers at a time. They'd bring along junior ones as part of their training; but those less experienced individuals would only be granted assignments relative to cheap Home Center tools. Just a couple hours ago I was using a miniature sliding miter saw made in Japan which I commissioned from them in the first place and sold many of, which is ten times better built than the version they now make in China, and would easily cost over a thousand dollars today. They had all kinds of wonderful specialty things like that, sold only a handful of places in the US, which went out of production once the Fukushima disaster dramatically elevated the price of energy in Japan. Manufacture involves a lot of variables, some of them unpredictable.

[Drew Wiley]

A hundred years ago there were still a few real mountain men around whose wooden tripods and skis you would not even to worthy to touch. Uphill from us was the fellow who skied the entire Muir Trail in 1927 on homemade wooden skis, and with only a buffalo hide for warmth and weather protection. It was another 50 years before that was did that again, and on modern equipment. And I myself had real wooden Lincoln Logs as child - none of that plastic Lego stuff, much less a set of shiny Mitutoyo blocks to stack up.

[Michael R]

True enough. By the time I learnt to ski the skis hadn’t been made of wood for a long time. They were also shorter than those crazy old wooden springy skis. Now the skis are far shorter still. Don’t knock Lego. It was a great toy. Still is, except now it seems to be more about building things once for display.

A hundred years ago there were still a few real mountain men around whose wooden tripods and skis you would not even to worthy to touch. Uphill from us was the fellow who skied the entire Muir Trail in 1927 on homemade wooden skis, and with only a buffalo hide for warmth and weather protection. It was another 50 years before that was did that again, and on modern equipment. And I myself had real wooden Lincoln Logs as child - none of that plastic Lego stuff, much less a set of shiny Mitutoyo blocks to stack up.

[David Lindquist]

Yeah I think Mitutoyo gauge blocks are top of the line. Not like these wooden tripods people think are great just because 100 years ago Morley Baer said they were the best lol.

Really nit-picking here. In this context the spelling is "gage" not "gauge".

Some day I'll try to track down why....

You are very fortunate to have known Morley Baer when he was four years old

David

[Michael R]

You might be right about the spelling, although I think both spellings are used - I saw a program on the topic of precision a while back in which the history of these things was explained (Johansson, Ford etc.) but I can’t seem to remember the details.

Regarding Baer, all I remember are the Ries ads in View Camera magazine quoting him. Something like “why do I use Ries? Because…it’s the best there is”. At least I think I remember it being Baer. I could be wrong about that too though My brain ain’t what it used to be, unfortunately.

Really nit-picking here. In this context the spelling is "gage" not "gauge".

Some day I'll try to track down why....

You are very fortunate to have known Morley Baer when he was four years old

David

[Mick Fagan]

Swedish patent No. 17017 called "Gauge Block Sets for Precision Measurement". Often referred to as "Jo blocks" after their inventor, Carl Edvard Johansson.

I would suggest that as the inventor was given his Swedish patent in 1901, spelling them "gauge", gauge it is.