Miniature Shoulder Plane Availability

As many of you have discovered, the Veritas Miniature Shoulder Plane  used in the Robo-Bevel is currently (as of June 25, 2020) out of stock. They were originally expected to be back in stock by June 30th, but that date is being delayed as well.

The little planes are made in Canada by Veritas and their factory has been on limited production due to COVID. I have been in contact with them regarding options for finding the planes. Some of you who live near a Lee Valley Tools store may be in luck, some stores have a limited supply, but often just a display model remaining. But your best bet is to just place an order on the Lee Valley site.

I am also investigating getting discounted pricing on the little shoulder planes myself so I can make it easier for customers to find it. That is secondary at this point, but it does sound like if you place an order through Lee Valley Tools they are shipping out the tools as soon as they arrive from the factory.

Here is what Shannon at Lee Valley customer services has to say:

Hello again.  We’re still waiting for a response about your possible discount, but wanted to follow-up with you on this in the meantime.

It shows that there are a few scattered in some of our retail stores, but they are unable to ship and in most cases those end up being display models, so they aren’t really available for mail order.  Their best bet if they want one is to simply place a mail order for it with us.  We do not charge in advance for mail order backorders, so while they would have to provide a credit card to place the order, we don’t actually bill them until stock is available and ships to them. This will simply put them in the queue to receive one once they’re back in stock.

While we have estimated due dates in our system for the full order we have with the vendor (in this case our own machine shop), they are doing their best to send us partial shipments as they become available, so sometimes stock arrives earlier than the posted dates.   We actually received a small batch of 60 of these planes yesterday, for example, but they are all spoken for as they have gone to fulfill pending backorders.      

Hopefully we will have an answer about your discount request soon as we will be in touch again about it.

Regards,
Shannon
Internet Customer Service
Lee Valley Tools Ltd.

If you are really desperate you can try contacting sources on their dealer list. I have had customers in Europe and elsewhere have success with local dealers as well.

Hopefully the back orders will be filled soon, I am still shipping the Robo-bevels so you can have that in hand when the miniature shoulder plane shows up.