Small 10-20-40 blocks that actually work.

Edit: Oops, Just saw the PM's...
I shouldn't be online at 1am..... ignore me :

George,
I went to their site and they do sell to the USA. But the 2 block sets and S&H it was over $70.00. :'(
It would be nice to find a cheaper shipping option.
I might order the small set.
Regards,
Fred

John Stevenson said:

Plus 20-40-80's

Bit of history first, the original 1-2-3 blacks were made by Starrett and the idea was they bolted together to form angle, tee's, used as packing or to bolt items to to preserve squareness.

One of those items that never had a specific designed use but was different thing to different people, very useful.

However at some stage these blocks went over to Taiwan and were copied but they drilled all the holes tapping size for 3/8" UNC, tapped some then hardened and ground them before changing the un-tapped holes to clearance holes.
Result is they wont bolt together as designed and since then millions of sets have been copied and made in India, and China. Even the Starrett ones are now wrong as they have them made out.

Click to expand...

Sir John, there are a couple of things I've wondered about 123 blocks as they were manufactured, you have your ear to the ground so you may know the answers.

One is, why didn't someone with access to a manufacturer whisper in their shell pinks many years ago that it would make good commercial sense for them to make the blocks with 3/8" through holes? It would give them a marketing edge etc etc?

Does the 95% of the world that uses metric use those same 123 blocks or do they have access to metric blocks with 10mm through holes?

Thanks for the heads up on the metric blocks.

Ketan Swali said:

Some clarification:

Small Set is about 75grams. Large Set is about 770grams. This is without the extra outside mail bag/envelope packing. ARCs original reply misplaced the decemal points when adding. Sorry!

Ketan at ARC.

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Just a little update:

Yesterday, a customer brought up the hardness issue of the blocks to my attention. I referred this to the engineers at the production factory.

The blocks have been heat treated to HRC25-HRC28, which is at the low end of the hardening process. The engineers have taken this decision as it allows the end user to make any changes to the blocks as they so wish.

We made a mistake by referring to them as hardened, rather than toughened. This has now been rectified on our website, however, the advert which appears in MEW 184 still incorrectly states hardened.
For all customer who are ordering with effect from 23rd November 2011 over the phone, we are clarifying this point pre-sale. Our selling prices remain the same.

We apologise to all customers who have purchased this item prior to 23rd November with the understanding that they are hardened to normal “rock hard” treatment to be found with traditional 1-2-3 blocks.
In this respect, if anyone wishes to return their blocks due to this misunderstanding, we are happy to accept their return, and we will pay for return carriage costs to us.
If you wish to do this, please call us first to enable us to log and agree to the return, along with carriage costs.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused effected customers.

Ketan at ARC.

Ketan,

When I checked mine down inside with a small Swiss file, they were plenty hard enough for me.

The small one especially, because if it was as hard as the normal 321 blocks, they could easily shatter if tightened up in the vice too much, as there is more hole than material

IMHO, they are perfect for the job, hard enough to resist scratching, denting and deforming, but plenty tough enough to do what I want to do with them.

Now having two sets of each, I can see them becoming indispensable for setups and machining. I will be making all sorts of little clamps and fixtures so that tiny items can be held on them. Then they will really come into their own. Before, I was having to make special jigs to hold things, these will take hours off the setup and machining cycles.

Just to answer a previous question. I have seen advertised 25-50-75mm blocks (in the US I think) but I have no idea if the holes are correct, as Ketans' are.


John

Attention Mr. Ketan Swali
I am trying to buy 2 sets of the smaller blocks from your company.
So far I am very unsuccessful. All I am trying to do is find out what the exact PayPal price will be for the merchandise and shipping. My invoice, on your web site, showed the price to be a total of 29.67 BPS. When I go to process the payment it says that payment will be processed at the current exchange rate, but does not give a final price that i will be paying with PayPal.
After the third email to your web site information address, all I seem to be getting back is that they cannot give me a price in U.S. Dollars, and to go to the checkout page and pay the amount shown. Unfortunately, the final actual amount in U. S. Dollars is never shown.

I just sent an email with details a few minutes ago asking them to forward it on to someone who can help me. Hopefully it will be brought to your attention.

As model makers, I am certain that there are a lot of builders here on this site that would love to be able to purchase your small blocks. But, you must understand that knowing what we are paying, before the payment is made, is really necessary to keep from being overcharged with any kind of hidden or conversion fees, which we have all seen from overseas sellers.
Thanks for any consideration, I am sure it will be appreciated by many reading this particular string of information.
George

l

George_Race said:

Attention Mr. Ketan Swali
I am trying to buy 2 sets of the smaller blocks from your company.
So far I am very unsuccessful. All I am trying to do is find out what the exact PayPal price will be for the merchandise and shipping. My invoice, on your web site, showed the price to be a total of 29.67 BPS. When I go to process the payment it says that payment will be processed at the current exchange rate, but does not give a final price that i will be paying with PayPal.
After the third email to your web site information address, all I seem to be getting back is that they cannot give me a price in U.S. Dollars, and to go to the checkout page and pay the amount shown. Unfortunately, the final actual amount in U. S. Dollars is never shown.

I just sent an email with details a few minutes ago asking them to forward it on to someone who can help me. Hopefully it will be brought to your attention.

As model makers, I am certain that there are a lot of builders here on this site that would love to be able to purchase your small blocks. But, you must understand that knowing what we are paying, before the payment is made, is really necessary to keep from being overcharged with any kind of hidden or conversion fees, which we have all seen from overseas sellers.
Thanks for any consideration, I am sure it will be appreciated by many reading this particular string of information.
George

l

Click to expand...

Having read comments on another forum, I understand that the costs will be expensive to ship these blocks to the U.S. I am not at work at presenting (U.K. evening), so I cant check.

We are unable to directly give you a clear idea of costs in U.S.Dollars. This is controlled by PayPal or your credit card service provider. At present, we only accept payment in Great British Pounds. To get a clear idea of costs in Great British Pounds, you will first need to register on our website with your name and U.S. address and log-in. This way, our website will know you are shopping from U.S., so, after you fill the shopping cart, and proceed to the check-out, the system will automatically calculate shipping costs for you to the U.S.. At this point, if the costs are workable for you (as I understand it from forum posts elsewhere - they are too high), then you can proceed to pay by credit card or PayPal. If too expensive, then you do not have to proceed with the purchase.

When you choose to pay by PayPal or credit card, you are automatically taken away from our website to their secure payment platform. This is to protect your security. We have no access to or control of this process. The rate they will use to calculate the exchange rate is also outside our control.

Note: as a matter of policy, we do not automatically take your payment. We just obtain authorisation. PayPal or the credit card company issue a block on your funds/account for the order amount. We only process the payment if we accept and process your order. However, we are aware that PayPal or the credit card company may indicate that they have already debited your account. At the end of the day, we are only interested in payment in Great British Pounds, and we do not know what rate of exchange PayPal or your credit card company will charge.

I hope this information is of help. You will note from this thread that a group of Australians have got together to do a group purchase, because costs to ship to each individual in Australia is just as expensive as it is to the U.S.. May be if you can get together with others in the U.S., it might be more cost effective.

Ketan at ARC.

Dear Ketan:
Thanks so much for the quick reply. Now I understand your situation with PayPal and Credit Cards I can see the position you are in.

I had a bad experience last year. I ordered an item from a company in England, paid by PayPal and was charged over double the actual cost of the item. I tried to reason with the company, but like you, they did not have control over how their financial provider processed PayPal through their system. Even worse I could not cancel the order and get my money back, they had a 40% restocking fee. I ended up paying over $200 U.S. Dollars for an item I found later that i could have purchased for around $80 U.S.

Again thanks for the reply and explanation. Hopefully one of these days someone stateside will start making a small set of blocks.
George

Ketan,
Why don't you guys set up a way of selling those blocks in a different way to the US. Right now the S&H is horrendous!
I, for one, can't see paying more for S&H than what I am buying!
Thanks,
Fred

All these people talking about high shipping costs.

This is what we from the UK have had to contend with for the last few years when bringing in items from the US.

It is common practice for items to cost us at least two times the original price and then we get hit for customs duty (20%) if it costs more than 18 UK pounds, and that includes shipping charges.

Some places do try to keep the price down by using USPS boxed services, but most use couriers, and that is when it gets very costly.

That is the way of the world nowadays and I am sure, if Ketan could get his overseas shipping charges down, he would, but even he can't magic up anyone who will ship for less.


John

I just want to say thanks to John Stevenson and the guys from ARC Euro for making these cool little blocks available.
Delivery was super fast, they were dispatched on Monday and arrived in Western Australia on Thursday. (4 days Thm

I turned down a few M6 cap screw heads to reduce the exposed head height when used with the 10-20-40mm blocks. Yes they are not as strong anymore due to the thinning of the section around the hex key hole, but I don't plan to be applying ###Nm of torque when I nip them up. ;D

Cheers,
Phil

Just a note with the cost of delivery,
Six of the forum members from Australia put in a combined order for a set of the small blocks and a set of the large blocks each.

For those able to pick them up in Western Australia we saved 30% over ordering individuality. The Eastern states guys saved 15% when you include the on shipping from west to east. If you get more people involved the savings increase.
It's one way of getting the shipping costs down, but it does require a little faith in your forum members that you group in with.

pelallito said:

Ketan,
Why don't you guys set up a way of selling those blocks in a different way to the US. Right now the S&H is horrendous!
I, for one, can't see paying more for S&H than what I am buying!
Thanks,
Fred

Click to expand...

Hi Fred,

I have re-looked into the S&H for USA. Lower revised rates for parcels up to 2kg gross weight to destinations: Canada, Dominican Republic, Mexico, United States have now been updated into our system, for parcels sent by Registered (Internatinal Signed for) Airmail Post. This applies to parcels up to GBP100.00 in value excluding handling and carriage.

Although the new prices are lower, they are not a major reduction. I have reduced the prices the best we can. We can only send parcels overseas by "registed" post, for security reasons. The cost for registering a parcel is GBP£4.95, as at November 2011. Rest of the carriage costs are based on gross weight of the parcel. The handling element we are charging is GBP£1.00, but this is less than what it really costs us after considering PayPal/Credit Card processor fees, financial processor fees, packaging and labor costs.

I will review the courier costs for parcels above 2kg gross weight and above £100.00 in value at a later date. However, at present we will not be shipping any electrical based products to the U.S..

I hope this will help you to re-consider your purchase decisions from the U.K..

Ketan at ARC.

Hi Ketan,
Thank you for looking into it and responding to me. I am sure that there are more than a few of us over here, that would buy more of your great products if the S&H were lower.
I will go back through your check out procedure and see what the price comes to. I would like to get more than a few tools from you!
Thanks again.
Best Regards,
Fred

I am in the US and would be interested in a pair.

I'm in the UK and probably a bit too old to appreciate a pair, however the blocks are nice. ;D

John S.

John Stevenson said:

I'm in the UK and probably a bit too old to appreciate a pair, however the blocks are nice. ;D

John S.

Click to expand...

bada da! He's here all week folks! Try the meatloaf and tip your waitress...

;D

John Stevenson said:

I'm in the UK and probably a bit too old to appreciate a pair, however the blocks are nice. ;D

John S.

Click to expand...

You're never too old to appreciate a pear!

steamer said:

Snip - tip your waitress...Snip

Click to expand...

That must be an American euphemism for 'do a Tango with the restaurant staff' ;D


Bez

Actually a "tip" is a gratuity for a job well done over and above the cost of the food.....

at least that's what it is in the US....in Austrailia...well who knows....probably what you do to get rid of a dropbear heh? ;D

Dave

"Tip" Australian coloquialism for a great place to find sometimes some good stuff, slowly being made extinct by the recycle station

"tip" a helpful bit of advice

"tip" then end of something sharp or pointy

There is probably more. Back to the subject of the blocks why are you imperialist in the USA interested in metric stuff I thought the country was trying to keep the metric system isolated to the rest of the world ;D

Tip- you are going to need new measuring sticks to use them blocks :big: :big:
Tip- 2.2046226218 pounds to the kilogram :big: :big:

Just pulling your leg


Brock