In defense of my workmanship on U3F

[Todd Lassen]

I heard from a source 12 weeks or more ago that BKM would drop me as the manufacturer of his U3F gaff. I also heard that they would discredit me to justify that change. When I confronted BKM about this BKM adamantly denied all and wanted to order 20 more sets.

I found out the hard way that the first part was true by discovering my name hand been removed from his website 3 weeks later...after I had sent the 20 sets. In fact, the name of the new gif that appeared in place of "coins made by Todd Lassen" was "3flytitlenotodd", that clearly said it all to me. A couple more weeks and this appears on the Genii board by a first time poster:

I private messaged a guy over there who posted about it and he told me the qulaity and delivery had gone down hill so mr. Kolher had to find a new maker.


Cheers, Bob

Next I see private emails forward to me that are circulating that also discredit me. And yesterday I received a PM on another board:

Hi Todd!!

Sorry, one fellow in the cafe said Bob's was unhappy with the price ( and he quoted some prices ) I should have checked further. I'll correct that.

Someone PM'd me saying Bob switched because the shell would warp from time to time and the new sets do not.

I think that's fine if there was a problem Bob wanted to address with you, but it seems like he went to a new manufaturer without discussing this with you first. That's not the way to treat friends/do business if it's true.

I'll correct what I said.

Best,

And now this from bobkohlermagic.com website.

* The gaff is extremely durable, I've used mine for thousands of performances and it works exactly as it did when it was brand new.

Unless BKM has had thousands of performances in the last couple months I am guessing that he is speaking of a gaff made by me. Feel free to jump in here and correct me if I am wrong Bob.

While I was producing my gaff for BKM we naturally had problems with a FEW here and there, due to a variety of things. I can assure you that WARPING was not one of them. Sometimes the silver itself would have voids in it and stress would cause it to crack, etc. Whenever there was a problem with a gaff I immediately repaired or replaced it at no charge to the customer or to BKM. Adjusting the gaff was not explained correctly on BKMs instructional video, so I spent alot of time just telling people how to adjust their gaff. I also repaired alot of dropped and damaged sets at little or no charge to BKMs customers.

As for the price..well, I certainly can't compete with cnc machinery when I am making every set entirely by hand. I can tell you that my labor charge to BKM was less than 20% of the asking price, and that was very fair in my book. There were other expenses on my part for just the good customer service I provided and I literally spent hours upon hours advising BKMs customers on the care and feeding of their gaffs.

The issues mentioned in the first quote were addressed earlier on this board. Cheers.
Todd Lassen