Wow what a fantastic response! Thanks very much to everyone for all your input. The general consensus seems to be to stick with hand tools - preferably exclusive hard to find ones or stuff that no one else stocks, and give power tools a wide berth. Taking all the suggestions in order here goes:
Affordable tools.
I have been in touch with the manufacturers of the Grant planes in China and with Bill at Tilgear, how it all pans out we'll have to see but it looks like they are a goer. Similar situation with the new Stanleys - just waiting to hear back from them. I'd be inclined not to go for Footprint as they are already widely available (nothing against them though - they are great chisels and good value for money) I will look into good quality entry level chisels though and see what else is out there.
Advice and Information.
Now that we have taken our website hosting in-house, I may be able to do HTML pages with more advice and information, failing that I could do downloadable PDF's of product reviews and instructions for specific tasks.
Kits for specific jobs.
What a cracking idea! We could start out with getting the material flat square and true, then do each of the basic joints and go right through to specialised jobs like inlay and banding.
Saw sets
I've steered clear of these up to now as they are cheap and reasonably easy to obtain secondhand. I do seem to remember seeing them in one of the manufacturers catalogues though, so I'll see what I can do.
Holdfasts
I absolutely love this idea, I spoke with Ashley Iles about it yesterday and they took all of 30 seconds to agree and dispatched one of the blacksmiths to start making a prototype immediately, watch this space!
Ray Iles tools
Shouldn't be a problem, Ray makes some fantastic kit. I toyed with doing his English mortice chisels a while back, again there is a fairly good seconhand market in these but the prices have been rising as their popularity has grown so there may be room in the market for new ones now. They were Joel's idea in the first place so as a matter of courtesy I'll ask him first. We have been looking at doing a lighter AI mortice chisel, maybe a sash, or a smaller version of the oval handled ones. At the moment they are pretty much flat out doing the new bevel edge and the Peter Benson carving tools. Adding some of Ray's other products is no problem at all.
Frame Saw blades
If we end up talking with one of the European woodie manufacturers they would probably also be the best bet for sourcing frame saw parts. Leave it with me.
Big pieces of float glass
I often tell customers that we are the last port of call for float glass as it is heavy and expensive to post. We don't make any money on it but keep it on stock as some people don't have a friendly local glass supplier who can help them out with a piece. If you need a big piece drop me a PM and I'll price it up for you, we may be able to tack it onto our next order.
Jet Clamps
Lots of enthusiasm for these, but Axminster have a very close relationship with JET and I couldn't realistically hope to compete with them in this case. Martin Brown is probably the best person to ask, I would be very surprised if he doesn't have something in the pipeline already.
Vogel Tools / Moore & Wright / Stanley Rabone etc
I initially looked at WERA on the basis that if their layout tools were as good as their screwdrivers they would be worth a go. I'll drop Vogel and Moore and Wright an email today and ask for more details. Stanley Rabone will come with the planes.
Dragon Saws
I had a chat with Ian last week and we are all hoping that Ron will be able to salvage the narrow bandsaw side of the business. I have said that I will support them in any way I can. In the meantime we are using Edwards Precision Saw Services who mainly manufacture wide blades for sawmills. They are a little more expensive than Dragon but the quality is right and they are great guys to deal with. We may yet end up listing several suppliers and become a one stop shop for made to measure bandsaw blades.
Pyrography
Not really one that I had considered so far, I thought Craft Supplies etc had that market pretty much sewn up.
Cabinet Fittings
Shouldn't be a problem, I've already got a couple of 'irons in the fire' on this one already.
DMT Spyderco etc
The problem I have with sharpening supplies at the moment is that several manufacturers have one or two products that I'd really love to stock. I'll have to get more information and compare the full ranges to come up with a plan.
Chris Vesper
Lovely looking tools and I'm sure Mike would let me buy them through him but I'm not sure if there is any benefit to you guys in both of us selling them. If there are any other makers like Chris who are unrepresented in the UK at the moment I would definitely be interested though.
Handsaw kits and £50-£60 price range English saws
This one is already underway, just waiting for the costings to come through for the kits.
Specialist finishes
This is an interesting suggestion and has cropped up more than once. I'm attracted by the idea of doing our own range of 100% natural finishing materials - like the woodworkers version of the body shop.
Veneering Tools
I have a source for some lovely veneer hammers and may be able to get hold of other veneering tools from the same company, I'll drop him an email.
Wooden Planes
Not a bad idea, we have trialled a few Mujingfang planes and I'd certainly be happy to stock Philly's - in many ways it would be nice to do traditional British woodies rather than Continental ones.
Timber
No problems developing this section, I really like being able to catalogue each piece individually and now that the days are starting to get longer I might even get around to the mountain of wood that is waiting to be photographed.
Thanks again for all your ideas.
Cheers,
Matthew
