Ordering hand tools from EU sources

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I've worked with plenty of ebony before (and have the asthma to prove it) but I hadn't even seen carbon fibre until it arrived only yesterday. Model aircraft makers use it, evidently, and various suppliers of the stuff have been very helpful. I didn't know the stuff could be bent, or even worked; I've only heard of it as stiffening in the necks of modern guitars, etc.

There are a few hazards with carbon fiber so I suggest you check up before machining it. One to look out for, is its very easy to get splinters as the fibres are very thin and very hard to remove, a few micro meters (um) in diameter ie like a hair. The fibres come in bundles or tows, with upto 500 5um sized fibres in a tow, so it looks like its thicker than it is. They are also the strongest lightest material known to engineering which is why the Boeing Dreamliner and A350 Airbus plane are made with them, lighter and stronger than aluminium. This makes them hard to cut, they will wear the edge of your tools. The fibre tows are boned together in a resin matrix ie an araldite type epoxy that is layered up to make the composite part. A composite behaves much like wood with long firbres for strength (cf cellulose in wood), with a bonding matrix of resin cf the lignin and they behave like wood with a fibre orientation. And easier to rip than cross cut. I'd recommend wear gloves when cutting and vacuum up the dust, assume the dust it has some loose fibre that will be similar to glass shards. If making a lot of dust, I'd suggest wearing a mask. I dont want to put you off, as it can be machined, but needs a bit to care and is tough on hand tools Hope that helps.
 
I am disinclined to have to buy a new hand-tool only to have to then grind it to the size I need*, so I turned to a well-known Berlin-based hand tools specialist company, only to find the UK not represented on their shipping destinations list. I have seen the huge increases in shipping costs from the EU as a result of Brexit, but have not seen—until today—the UK excluded as a shipping destination. Their (more or less immediate) response to my subsequent email was ‘ [...] the only way to avoid a number of problems is to temporarily suspend shipments to the UK’. How long this state of affairs will last is not stated.

I guess the company is Dieter Schmidt Fine Tools? I also saw UK missing from their shipping destinations, and contacted them to query both by email and website contact form. They never bothered to reply, so I won't be ordering from them again, however the post-Brexit situation eventually turns out. :mad:
 
I guess the company is Dieter Schmidt Fine Tools? I also saw UK missing from their shipping destinations, and contacted them to query both by email and website contact form. They never bothered to reply, so I won't be ordering from them again, however the post-Brexit situation eventually turns out. :mad:
I also wrote to ask them, via website; it took a week to reply, but they did eventually, on 23rd Feb, when they said they expected to restore service in "about 2w"---so it should be imminent. I used to use them quite a bit, and generally found them very efficient.
 
Having received this morning from a UK supplier an order of one ‘3mm mortise chisel’ for a specific use, I was not altogether surprised to read on the packaging that it was a ‘1/8th (3mm) chisel’. I had gone through the various offerings available, and had excluded the several other nominally sized ones, in favour of a product which referred only to 3mm, rather than to both imperial and metric dimensions.

I am disinclined to have to buy a new hand-tool only to have to then grind it to the size I need*, so I turned to a well-known Berlin-based hand tools specialist company, only to find the UK not represented on their shipping destinations list. I have seen the huge increases in shipping costs from the EU as a result of Brexit, but have not seen—until today—the UK excluded as a shipping destination. Their (more or less immediate) response to my subsequent email was ‘ [...] the only way to avoid a number of problems is to temporarily suspend shipments to the UK’. How long this state of affairs will last is not stated.



* The reason the tolerances are so important is that I’m working with carbon fibre (which I’ve never even seen before, let alone had to work with) inlaid into Ebony, and I don’t have the extraction kit, etc. to be able to work the carbon fibre safely.
I can no longer buy from many in the UK, for the same reason, I'm in Italy. Furthermore, even if I could I probably wont anymore because the charges for importing goods are ridiculously high. Shipping a simple pack of tea using fedex now takes a month. I recently sent myself a box of stuff from Felixstowe, VAT paid in UK, value approx £165, many items personal belongings and used. I paid €36 VAT, €18 duty and €18 charges.
Last year Dieter Schmidt wouldn't accept orders to Italy using DHL.
 
Did you pay German or UK VAT?

I understand the arrangement is different for consignments of under and over £135.
My wife thought that but I think the rule is different for each EU country. I think they still haven't really sorted it out for some reason. What other reason could there be for packages taking a month?
 
I think for goods entering the EU, the new VAT rules were originally meant to start on 1 Jan 2021 but are now going to start on 1 July 2021.
 
There are a few hazards with carbon fiber so I suggest you check up before machining it. One to look out for, is its very easy to get splinters as the fibres are very thin and very hard to remove, a few micro meters (um) in diameter ie like a hair. The fibres come in bundles or tows, with upto 500 5um sized fibres in a tow, so it looks like its thicker than it is. They are also the strongest lightest material known to engineering which is why the Boeing Dreamliner and A350 Airbus plane are made with them, lighter and stronger than aluminium. This makes them hard to cut, they will wear the edge of your tools. The fibre tows are boned together in a resin matrix ie an araldite type epoxy that is layered up to make the composite part. A composite behaves much like wood with long firbres for strength (cf cellulose in wood), with a bonding matrix of resin cf the lignin and they behave like wood with a fibre orientation. And easier to rip than cross cut. I'd recommend wear gloves when cutting and vacuum up the dust, assume the dust it has some loose fibre that will be similar to glass shards. If making a lot of dust, I'd suggest wearing a mask. I dont want to put you off, as it can be machined, but needs a bit to care and is tough on hand tools Hope that helps.
I guess the company is Dieter Schmidt Fine Tools? I also saw UK missing from their shipping destinations, and contacted them to query both by email and website contact form. They never bothered to reply, so I won't be ordering from them again, however the post-Brexit situation eventually turns out. :mad:
Correct, it was Dieter Schmid (sic) who replied by return of email to my enquiry about not shipping to the UK.
 
Brexit dividend pops up everywhere but hadn't touched me noticeably. Until new specs paid for recently, following cataract operation. Was two weeks, now four (estimated), thanks to brexit.
High spec specs from Germany apparently.
So that's two or more weeks staggering about with poor vision, thanks to brexit and all those who voted for it.
Glad I'm not a fisherman!
 
I guess the company is Dieter Schmidt Fine Tools? I also saw UK missing from their shipping destinations, and contacted them to query both by email and website contact form. They never bothered to reply, so I won't be ordering from them again, however the post-Brexit situation eventually turns out. :mad:
I got a very nice reply from Dieter a couple of months ago, when they said they had suspended sales until they had sorted out all the Brexit stuff. But even then they weren't sure it woudl be worthwhile to do so. Isn't this Brexit shoot lovely!
 
I got a very nice reply from Dieter a couple of months ago, when they said they had suspended sales until they had sorted out all the Brexit stuff. But even then they weren't sure it woudl be worthwhile to do so. Isn't this Brexit shoot lovely!
It's OK - we are getting our own back by not exporting to them!
 
Blue passports guys, we get blue passports.

Joke is that we could ALWAYS have had blue passports - the red ones weren't mandatory. Croatian passports are blue and German passports are a sort of pink. As if it mattered !! All the others are a sort of Burgundy-ish shade. The REAL joke is that the new UK passport is manufactured in France.
 
On the third, this company said it had finally sorted everything out and could now ship to the EU, on the 5th they stopped again.
noorders.PNG


Why is there so much confusion? Surely everyone must know what is going on by now?
 

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