Grooves and beads

I have the Veritas small plow plane that is a few years old and was somewhat disappointed when I read that Lee Valley was coming out with a new version that can do beading as well.  A bit further down in the description, however, was the news that for $59 (including shipping both ways) the company will re-machine your older plane so that it will be able cut beads.  As a bonus, they also upgrade the depth stop, which had a tendency to slip.  I jumped at the chance.

Yesterday in the mail I received the kit:

In typical Lee Valley fashion, they send you detailed instructions on how to disassemble the plane, bags for the parts you keep and for the parts you send them (which has an anti-rust coating), a custom shipping box and an envelope with a reverse postage stamp.  Took only a few minutes to have my plane tucked in and cozy:

Stay tuned.  I am writing about this now because they are only doing this through August, so, if you own one of these planes, get cracking.

There is a larger point here.  It pleases me tremendously that Lee Valley is thinking about and caring about its customers this way, that they still know you after the sale.  You don't run into this too often.  I often hear and read that customers won't pay for this, but I sure will and it makes me a loyal Lee Valley customer.  I don't know about you, but I am tired of  buying things and throwing them away when they break or new models come out.  No wonder the landfills are full.