https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article-times-misleading-makes-me-so-mad-kate-hills

The usual story from the likes of London College of Fashion, Monsoon, Ethical Fashion Forum, or this time New Look. Kate Hills, who wote the blog post, has used the same tactic against me when I try to wrestle free information about UK T shirt manufactuers from her...

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article-times-misleading-makes-me-so-mad-kate-hills

As Kate Hills says, if you look hard enough in the UK for a factory which will employ people under the minimum wage, you will probably find one. If you pay enough for a UK factory to pay a minimum wage, or you increase the lead time and order size and you pay your bills on time you will find loads more which New Look claim not to have heard of.

If you want to know more about New Look, you can find their bad reviews on Ethical Consumer:
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/scoredetails.aspx?ProductId=275703 

The firm has had trouble getting financial backing recently, and has trouble keeping on good terms with its financial PR companies, working through three in quick sucession.

Do not invest in Bondora | P2P lending

P2P lending
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/04/just-invested-few-tenners-in-primestox.html
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/08/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards-bondora.html 

Bondora review: do not invest in Bondora
http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4853/invest-bondora

Glad that not many of my loans turned-out like Bondora loans, with worse returns than Funding Circle a few years ago or early Zopa personal loans. Worse than Bitbond. I could be wrong, but my Bondora login screen writes my account as worth €4,160 except that I can't withdraw it. The amount I can withdraw is €0 (worth €4,160 in Bondora money). If I click "sell loans", a high figure for salable loans appears sometimes, and then with a few clicks corrects itself to zero, so I can't withdraw Bondora money and I can't sell Bondora money, and I can't eat it or live in it or anything else either.

While Bondora write €4,160 on the account, profit is minus €834 (suggesting 8% or 9% bondora returns with the Bondora portfolio manager). Meanwhile they are happy to take card payments and pay commission for referrals. I imagine that a lot of people borrow on their credit cards to lend, and for some reason, nobody has written articles about what a scam the whole thing has become after a promising start before the firm tried to expand very quickly into new lending markets like Spain and relied more and more on equity finance companies to buy them out.

http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4853/invest-bondora has dozens of Bondora trading reviews from people who have lost money on the site, but for some reason there are no search results saying the same thing from newspapers and website claims look impossible to justify. There is another thread for the technically-minded showing just results: None of the technically-minded people look pleased.
http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/4340/general-bondora-statistics

I don't see ads from Bondora so I can't forward them to the UK advertising standards authority - they do a lot of web and PR stuff and those Trustpilot reviews you can get done, but I'm surprised that it isn't sombody's job in some country to get the claims changed or just stop Bondora taking-on new loans. There are loads of very good euro P2P lending sites that loose trust because of their neighbour.

If you would like to nominate Bondora and their equity finance backers (who don't invest in the loans themselves I think) for the Fintech awards, please add a note saying "not seriously".

Sons of Divine Providence T/a Orion

Council funding over £500 is public nowadays, as spreadsheets.

"Sons of Divine Providence T/a Orion".looked a bit frightening. Like Jimmy Saville with knobs on. Scroll down to tbe bottom of this blog post and you will see what I mean, even though inspectior's reports are good.


The Royal Borough of Richmond upon Themes is the council that paid The Catholic Childrens Society to provide schools counselling services, just after that organisation ceased being an adoption agency to avoid prosecution. They would have been prosecuted for refusing to talk about gay fostering and adoption or allow it. Richmond council didn't give much information about that:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/schools_counselling_contract_awa

Suspicious about Sons of Divine Providence T/a Orion (but not keen to do a load of work digging I don't know if this spending is down to someone who needs social care, and their guardian. It could be that a faith-group enthusiast is responsible for someone with learning difficulties, and asked the council to fund this particular care home. So I don't know if the choice of care home has anything to do with the council.

Suspicion led to prosecution and judgements aganist the mayor of Tower Hamlets a few years ago. I was interested in Tower Hamlets Council because they helped fund a bunch called "Ethical Fashion Forum" along with "Ethical Fashion Bloggers" and a cheap office for another bunch called "Pants to Poverty" at a building called "Rich Mix", which was an arts centre and small workshop letting space apparently, built at headling-grabbing cost on the site of a nearly identical building which was knocked-down to make space. Each of these organisations was something other than it first seemed; none was much of a trading company or trade association or a group of bloggers. After all, why would a group of bloggers have an office address? Each group was influenced, I think, by an advertising agency called Futerra, which was keen on free trade at the expense of producers in democratic welfare states and their potential staff, often in Tower Hamlets according to unemployment stats from jobcentres..

Part of the time the council was controlled by Mr Rahman, trading as THF, a political party. These are paragraphs from the court judgement that removed him.

"In essence the allegation against Mr Rahman is that considerable money was paid to organisations (including media organisations) operating within the Bangladeshi community by way of grants, with the corrupt intention that those who belonged to or benefitedfrom those organisations would be induced to vote for him and for THF"

"It is said that undue religious influence was exercised so as to convince Muslim voters that it was their religious duty to vote for Mr Rahman and THF"

I have got about half way through the judgement and may not ever read to the end, but it suggests why a council should back causes associated with a faith group in order to boost the vote, and do it in un-stated ways. A council might write "thinning" to claim a woodland management grant to reduce "invasive speces ... knotweed", when everybody knows they want to stop gypsies and gay people using a piece of park, and there is a stonking-great 2m height restriction built to stop caravans getting in and a ginormous ground clearing operation, applied only to areas used for cruising, to make gay people more vulnerable to crime and to discourage them.

Barnes Common, Friends of Barnes Common, and the anti-cruising clearances

Richmond Council claimed a £40,000 grant for thinning woodland in order to protect native grassland and prevent invasive knotweed on the south side of Barnes Common. Action  not wanted needed or done. Spending is on the north side. The council's client organisation, "Friends of Barnes Common", said half of this after a training session from a group at Tower Hamlets Cemetry, where they went for a walk-around and introduction to techniques for reducing cruising.

They spent £60,000 on "regularising" a car park with floodlights on masts which happen to shine in to the cruising area to annoy and endanger the gay cruising taxapayers of Richmond upon Thames.

Funny what councils do isn't it? I thought they had a duty to provide social care, education, social housing, and maintenance of minor roads with the taxpayers' money they get. To be fair to them, I saw another payment to "Eagle House School", which is some wierd place I had to go when I was 8-13 years old. I wouldn't recommend it to future generations any more than - from the look of it - I would recommend this bunch. Both probably pass care quality commission tests and I checked that this one does. But it looks like Jimmy Saville with knobs on, saying something very strange about parents and funders that is nothing to do with what's best for someone with learning difficulties.

Grenfell Tower - get on board

Grenfell Tower's Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation: Get On Board

I used to work just over the road from Grenfell Tower on a housing and social work job. Scroll to the bottom for an anecdote headed "anecdote" that might make you laugh. From that, I learnt nothing about Grenfell Tower directly (one or two tenants moved to council flats next door but not in the tower) but a lot of the evidence is obvious about the causes of the fire,

• cladding not sprinklers
• housing associations management, not "residents listened to" or "fire regulations" directly
• what an inquiry should talk about, if there is a need for one at all

Polyurethane Cladding

Everyone has seen fire damage on tower blocks, which effects one flat and just possibly the one above or two floors above, if cinders have got in through a window. It follows that the problem is not directly about sprinklers, even if they would have helped. Everyone has also seen the smouldering cladding on TV, so that's where the problem lies.

Housing Association Management

Meanwhile, The Guardian writes that a load of people are in Kensington Town Hall chanting "we want answers" while The Independent thinks they are shouting "we want justice" - it must be hard to tell who should ask what question to who. Kensington Council is ground landlord to a specialist housing association that spent £10 million on polyurethane cladding. A small amount of extra spending would have bought inflammable cladding. It's as simple as that.

One thing I did learn while working for a housing organisation was how completely dotty they are, obsessed with procedure and hierarchy that forces staff to act a bit like MPs, stuck between residents and a procedure that says they have to be consulted about decisions already taken. While procedure is important, the theory behind what they do is almost secret and has to be picked-up gradually with luck. Each member of staff has a different theory to what the organisation is meant to do. Grenfell Tower was slightly simpler because it offers permanent housing, but some of the complications are the same.

Examples.

Should a supported temporary housing organisation exist to help

• past residents with resettlement and opportunities to come-back to a club or for advice
• future residents
• just the ones in the building who make a fuss?

If a junior member of staff somehow gives a senior member of staff a funny feeling of unstated disagreement, is this a question of

• facts,  polite disagreement, action according to who's job it is to decide what
• bad attitude and an excuse to discourage a potential rival?

Should the funding of the organisation be

• described in a contract in the director's safe, which nobody else is allowed to see?
• presumed by everyone concerned in their own way, often conflicting? For example people could agree that it would be good for a volunteer to do something, but need more information about whether taxpayer subsidy or rent covers something done by paid staff.

Should fire safety information be

• evidence based with training to anyone who needs it based on records of past fires and clear facts?
• left at the discretion of fire safety officers who speak to the maintenance manager about fire regulations that don't exist or are very hard to look-up?
• oddly enough, an ex employee of the housing association has written an article for The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/16/worked-kctmo-nightmares-burning-tower-blocks . Her experience is a little less frustrating in some ways. She got a job after university; I faced all this in the 80s and had to work-up to the privilege of a housing job or a housing support job. Housing support workers were paid less and that was my job title. She also got some kind of clear training about fire by default. I had to talk about fire safety because team meetings required it, so I asked for proper training and eventually got it, from the firm that supplied fire extinguishers. An unusual success but true. The ambivalence is the same. Is the job social work? Or letting agent? Or an awful mixture of the two under glaring management scrutiny by people who shouldn't really be in the job, but were somehow allowed to cash the subsidy cheque.

Should consultation of residents assume

• that all residents want the same thing, to be determined in a meeting, and "get on board" as the picture suggests?
• that every tenant will want a slightly different thing, often overlapping? For example most might think plastic cladding flammable, some might not care either way if sprinklers are installed, others might think it a waste of money and a few might not want the things in their flats while they are tenants, whatever happens outside. That's not a "get on board" answer.

You get the gist that nobody would want to work for a housing organisation for long and staff turnover is high. Meanwhile a group of residents is encouraged to use vague language and to feel disappointed. I disagree with The Guardian's statement about a similar group:

 "Residents are not ignorant: they have to live in buildings like this one every day, hoping for the best in the knowledge that this home is the only one they have. Grenfell Tower’s tenants may not have been experts in architectural cladding – who is, apart from the people you entrust with the safety of your home? – but they were well aware that their building didn’t have an adequate fire-alarm system or procedure for evacuation in the event of a serious fire."

The truth is that residents have different levels of ignorance, and the tricky bit is to inform and educate about background detail, and that's something that could be done on the .gov.uk website or anywhere similar; it doesn't have to be done by every single landlord. Just today, someone added a note to this page https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire to say that planning permission was for less flammable cladding. That's the kind of fact that residents need so that debates can be reasonable and not break-down into phrases like "doesn't listen" or "justice".

If I lived in a tower block, I would not vote for fire practises, nor go-along with them if introduced. I would be the one who left a pushchair next to the lift and got cross with an official who sent a letter. The truth is obvious. It's plastic cladding that spread the fire, and sprinklers would only use-up scarce time and money, so making the choice of cheap cladding more likely.

There another bit of ignorance that politicians and media encourage. It is a view of a religious people who like to come together in shared togethery-ness, and have no need for the Social Fund or whatever it is called now, or Housing Benefit, or the council's duty social worker or duty to rehouse in emergencies. No politician went to visit Work and Pensions staff trying to deal with emergency claims, but a few visited

No wonder there is a group of people making a fuss about sprinklers that wouldn't have helped, and a group sitting in the ground landlord's lobby chanting "justice" or "answers" as loudly as they can. If there is a public enquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire's cause, that's what it will find out. An organisation with high staff turnover, low availability of facts, and shelves full of tenant consultation notes and policies as their name - Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation - suggests. If you check their web site at this difficult time, you see just such a message, as a pop-up that all new visitors have to acknowledge.

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what an inquiry should talk about

• Planning permission was for one cladding; the suppliers' receipt was for another more flammable one. That's the whole thing sorted with just some background stuff to find out about
• How members of housing association staff thought plastic cladding was OK.
  This is the same as asking: how do people who wish they could get a better job end-up making a decision when bombarded from all sides? What is it that makes the job difficult and short of applicants? What allows the Machiavellian applicant to get the job? Why are people writing about the need for sprinklers, which would reduce a tight budget, when more expensive cladding (or none) is obviously the answer?
• How fire laws, law-like rules, and evidence could be made more search-able and well-written. To the point where any builder or housing association worker or tenant in a consultation meeting should be able to start looking them up, even if they give-up and ask advice later in the process. This is more important than whether laws and law-like things are up to date on plastic cladding, I think that private sources of information and negligence law should work almost by themselves, even if nobody updates things like ministerial guidelines for decades.
  
  If evidence of past fires and injuries could be linked to the same sources of information, so that someone in a meeting with colleagues about cheap cladding, under pressure from all sides, could point to previous fires, that would be ideal.
• How people who are fair and who respect facts could be hired info public-funded management jobs. This I think requires a way of getting a reference from previous junior colleagues, as well as the senior ones who might be Machiavellis or just desperate to be shot of the person they give a reference for.
• How people are so ignorant of facts that they invade the wrong building, claim they are being lied-to about facts which nobody can yet know (the death toll) and generally believe that making a noise helps. I think the rioters are the problem as well as the cladding-choosers and their management.
• How to get breathable air to a flat that has toxic smoke wafting about. Sprinklers wouldn't help. A long fire-proof hose in each flat might help, either to climb down or to breath through.
• Finally there is the issue of dignitaries and camera units coming to film and shake hands with people called "community leaders" in one case. There was a report today that a local catholic priest was praying for victims of the disaster. I hope it made a concrete difference, but in the UK we have a
  benefits agency with
  hardship payments, we have
  duty social workers,
  housing benefit, and the
  council's duty to re-house people made homeless by disasters.
  
  All of these are important and more likely to have any effect than what the BBC reports, which is priests and shared togethery-ness. So the enquiry should enquire why no politician could be bothered to visit the benefits agency and no public sector information worker put-out statements about how benefits are meant to work. The result could be better understanding by claimants about what they've paid for, better understanding by politicians about whether the system works, and less of this pretend system by which people pull-together and post random jumpers to local churches in case that helps.

Anecdote - skip to para two if in a hurry

 As it happens my employer - London Cyrenians - rented cheap space off the building where Grenfell residents met politicians or spent an emergency night or two, a building built as a church, with basements and balconies sub-let to social work and education agencies, and still working for faith groupies in the middle. Our office was in the left-hand balcony, where Victorian architects planned for so many more faithful to congregate that two tears of seating would be required. Maybe they expected even more and left room to build more balconies. By the 1950s or 1960s, someone must have guessed that this was not going to happen and built partitions with frosted glass and lockable doors to make a lettable office space.

One day the boss was a way for the weekly stupid team meeting. We heard music. Lead Kindly Light Amidst Encircling Gloom ... Leed Thou Me On ...  something like that. So we sang along, as you do if trying to bond with colleagues.

This was a real funeral for some faith-groupies, apparently. The director told us a day or two later, just in passing. There was nothing else to do or say

---

related post about London Housing Trust:
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/06/london-housing-trust.html

John Robertson now works at Veganline.com for vegan shoes online

Primestox.com - I have just invested in a new P2P lending site

P2P lending related pages

• Rebuildingsociety business & asset finance
  
• Investly invoice finance
  
• https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html another post on this obscure blog
  
• http://p2pindependentforum.com/thread/8588/primestox-company-platform-stock-finance Place for comments on the P2P independent forum for now
  
• Veganline.com for vegan shoes on-line - author's advert
  

P2P lending on this blog
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2016/09/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards.html
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/04/just-invested-few-tenners-in-primestox.html
https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2017/08/p2p-lending-risks-and-rewards-bondora.html 

Just invested a few tenners in Primestox.com , a P2P lending outfit that has trappings of sanity like a nice web site. It has high annual percentage payback rates on very small short-term small investments if all goes well, and next to no references from other web pages. So I decided to invest about £100 yesterday, and write this referring page which I revise now and then. There's also a link to a P2P invoice finance company further down which might interest the same businesses, and a P2P business capital company which is good for secured loans on equipment. I don't know why I wrote "capital" rather than "finance" but I think it looks good for larger amounts.

( Update February 2018 - Every Primestox deal has paid on time or early, one or two have posted freebies, and the system has worked exactly as described. Most of the deals have sold-out within hours, so the rates on offer are dropping. Below 12% it is harder to get P2P lenders interested quickly because sites like Lendy and Fundingsecure offer that much for bridging loans; at the moment Primestox offers are about 18% with free card processing. )

The Primestox contract

primestox.com/faq/ + a brochure or ask customerservice@... or the formal version: primestox.com/terms-and-conditions

Investors have a right to a parcel of food on default

The firm finances food for investors, and, being a P2P platform, investors own the food. Other P2P systems are a bit theoretical about this, but not Primestox, where it is a point of pride and and spelt-out in some detail, with inevitable gaps. The food is financed over about three months allowing its manufacture, sale to a shop, and payment back to the manufacturer or importer. Each investor owns the right to an individual parcel of food, with free delivery, if the process goes wrong. A pound of flesh for example. The earlier deals have been branded, upmarket, and valued at a near-retail price somewhere like Waitrose. More recently there have been bulk spice imports as well.

There is no link from one lender to one physical piece of food until the parcel is made-up, but it's a safe bet that a food company will have food to spare if not money, and there is a more general link between one batch of loans to the food company and one batch of food produced.

A way of funding food production before it is produced without borrowing

primestox.com/producers/ is the new producer's page or ask producers@...com
+44 (0) 207 846 0153

I'm not a producer and pick this up from examples under each past loan, headed "the proposal". The gist of it is that you pre-sell some of the product before it's cooked - while it is a sack of oats for sale at a supplier's warehouse, worth so much less than the finished product that you can offer a very attractive rate of return to a few investors. These are some notes from a proposal, with the adjectives left-out.

Fund the production of ... snacks.
Oat, Almond, Carob, Seed, Apricot, Brazil Nut main ingredients for chewy or chunky squares
Packed in retail cases of 20.
Sogud will produce of 4 varieties x 70 cases  (280 total)

Product Review
Good

Location

Lanarkshire, Scotland

Producer

Sogud Ltd

Duration

4 months

Repayment date

26th Sep 2017

Profit offered

5.5% absolute, 17% annual

Security

100% of the product

Product

Sogud Single Serve Gluten Free Squares (20 per case)

Marketplace

Fife Creamery, TK Maxx

• Promoting the food, retail, wholesale, and the brand in the background
  

  P2P finance makes your business public to a few dozen people on each platform who become interested in your brand. A few is better than none. It also allows you to offer a cash-back deal that encourages some lenders to think about buying your food. Some do. Some remember to claim cash back This is a more targeted kind of promotion than a loan raised on Seedrs or Crowdcube, where some of the same food firms have funded production.
  
  If lenders want food instead of repayment on a small loan, better still - Primestox encourages them to email, and will forward requests on to you.
  
  "CrowdCube does a fantastic job of publicising SMEs. But does this always lead to sales? PrimeStox's product focus can boost revenues of our producers. " -primestox.com/comparison
  
  "From the manufacturers perspective this will finance inventory and drive sales to consumers. A positive double whammy! ", - review in Informatia.
  
  Lenders are called "friends". I'm a blogger; I don't know much about human relations, but this doesn't sound quite right.
  
  Even a blogger can sense some connection between an invester and the food. Some lenders may be bloggers or tweeters or chatterboxes or dinner hosts or potential stockists. They might offer the cash-back deal to someone else. They also have an incentive to fund small amounts, simply because of the risk (a theoretical risk so far) of defaulted borrowers' food plonked on their door step, so there are a more plonkees per batch of food than lenders per loan on other P2P sites - it's like crowd funding with extra incentives to buy food.
  
  The link to your brand and sales pitch remains on the Primestox site for as long as they want to show their track record, which is probably a long time.

• Formal way for informal contacts to lend
  

  If a food producer has relatives, partners, staff, customers, or any kinds of contacts who want to take a flutter, this provides a formal way that they can do it without having to draw-up a contract. So your 50% partner can put more money into the batch and remain a 50% partner. Paroducers just put-up a poster for Primestox. Contacts sees the url, log-on out of curiosity, and your family or your customer might take a punt. Or take a punt on the next deal if they ever have spare money in the bank.

• Promoting the food for clearance wholesale
  

  This is un-tested, but from a food producers' point of view it might be good to be known to a lot of foodies, just in case one of them can offer a price for specialised food near its sell-by date. Maybe another person who puts money in is a shopkeeper who will try selling the stuff and order some more when it runs-out. My search for investers on twitter reveals a physics teacher, a football journalist and a P2P lending enthusiast who likes bitcoin. I am a P2P enthusiast too, but one who advertises a facebook page to vegans for a vegan shoe shop, so I could help try to clear products for the vegan market. I guess that one food industry person tends to attract another over time. Maybe they all live together in a special building somewhere ... or maybe I'm going off the point a bit here.
  

Incentives to borrowers compared to invoice finance, banks & crowd funding

Security. The name says it. Other lenders start by asking about the business, then very quickly ask for as much security as for a personal loan. If the loan goes bad they can hardly be bothered to think about the value of stock. A personal guarentee can only be given so many times. For example at Investly invoice finance, when either side somehow messes-up - either the shop or the supplier - then the loan is backed by the supplier's personal guarantee. Called-in for payment, this could be a distraction that causes stress and legal costs all round rather than paying-back the lenders or letting the borrower get-on with earning a living, so anyone who is short of credit might use Primestox for all of a loan, while another borrower might use some combination of Primstox and Investly. I don't know the contract, but there is certainly not much stated to investers about personal guarantees. The contract probably evolves from experience over time.

Small loans allowed. The track record says it. The smallest loan on their web site so far is £3,000, while Rebuildingsociety has a minimum loan amount of £25,000. Investly will lend from 1,000 and Marketinvoice has a calculator that starts at £5,000 with a minimum £250 fee to match.

• Compared to 1.65-2.6% monthly interest for invoice finance on Investly
  

  Investly is a P2P site where lenders lend the value of an invoice not yet paid.
  It doesn't have regular stream of loans for lenders, compared to other P2P sites, but might appeal to the same people who are looking to borrow or pre-sell; the companies that sell food on Primestox.
  
  Investly's site says borrowers pay 1.65-2.6% a month - about 20-35% annually. If the invoice has not yet been agreed, there is no loan; it is only for a month or so between sending an invoice to the shop and getting paid. Assuming the shop doesn't want to pay before production, that leaves a lot of ingredients and work to finance, even before sending the food and the invoice. So invoice finance just competes with the last month or so of the three-month cycle that Primestox typically finances. Primstox' one press mention, in Informita New, December 2016, says that there aren't many stock or inventory finance companies - "there are some out there who have had limited success, but none have hit the market in a bit way", so the niche-within-a-niche of "perishable" could do with a specialist P2P firm. There has also been a shortage of cheap bank loans to smaller firms, allowing P2P markets like Rebuildingsociety to fill the gap and make loans secured on equipment or buildings.

• Benefit compared to a bank

  It's a kind of civic duty to find alternatives to banks at the moment, but there are financial reasons to avoid them as well. Everybody knows that they have high costs and are short of money.
  
  
  Our experience tells us that business owners are in distress about having their overdrafts and other bank products pulled with short notice. In fact, research suggests that banks are pulling £5 billion in overdrafts from business in the UK each month! What’s more alarming is that this is not new and has been a trend for almost a decade, since before the financial crisis, and banks are still not lending anywhere near as much as they did prior to 2007.
  
  
  The alternatives to SME bank lending have all notably moved away from a ‘one size fits all’, ‘computer says no’, ‘box-ticking’, approach, understanding that different businesses have different financial needs at different times. - K Grieff of Rebuildingociety , 7/6/17
  
  The Primestox alternative offers a little very targeted advertising, tempting people to go into shops and buy the food. A better deal than borrowing more money to pay for advertising. Which is presumably why some firms experiment with sites like Indiegogo and Crowdcube to raise cash; Primestox pitches itself in the same producers.

• Primestox.com/comparison v Indiegogo, Market Invoice, Crowdcube & Ratesettter

  A neat point-by-point comparison chart. - Indiegogo is a donation or investment platform that doesn't necessarily offer rewards to investors. - Crowdcube offers shares as a reward, which pay no dividend and can only be sold at another funding round. There is no other security like security on specific stock or a personal guarantee. - Market Invoice is an invoice finance site, that I don't know about as a lender because they have a very high minimum investment. - Ratesetter is a consumer credit and low-risk lending site.

My first two or three investments...

• £30 for 16 x ¼ litre fruit juice, cold-pressed @ £15 a litre.
  
• £20 for 20 x 60g fruit energy bars @ £16.66 a kilo. For comparison, ClearanceXL tries to sell 60g fruit energy bars at a quarter the price - four for a pound plus delivery. If they were buying they'd want to pay - what? - 10p a bar sale or return for some minimum amount?
  
• £20 for 200g of vanilla paste @ £100 a kilo
  
• £25 for 10 x 200g pots of fermented pickle @ £12.50 a kilo. This is usually home-made or sold in wholefood markets apparently.
  
• £20 for 10 x 500g packs of frozen chips, sweet potato, battered @ £4 a kilo. MySupermarket shows a few shops selling sweet potato chips, usually not battered, with the smaller packs or upmarket brands around £4 a kilo while typical prices are £2.60 or less on special offer or under £2 at Aldi. Waitrose sells these battered ones at £5.60 a kilo. The same brand has some crisps at ClearanceXL (see below) but I get this wrong at first glance - they are crisps and not these chips.
• If I update this page after any of my loans default, I'll mention it at the top of the page but repeated loans on different deals have all gone well so far.

Incentives for lenders

• Cashback
  

  If you buy the food in a shop, borrowers might offer a cashback deal, should you be organised enough to keep the receipt and send it in. Maybe when the payment comes, you could use it to buy a packet of food with the cashback deal. Primestox suggest you email them if you want food instead of interest,
  

• Flutter of excitement - food is delivered to you if the borrower can't pay
  

  For investments of a few tenners, the excitement is in the flutter. A parcel of food might turn-up one day if the payment doesn't. If payment does arrive, you could use it with a cashback scheme to get a packet of food, or put it towards beer and fags and gambling debts, or leave it in the account to spend on the next deal to come-along and watch the money grow.
  
  For investments of two or three hundred pounds at a time, it's trickier. Nobody knows the risk of the borrower not paying - whether one in twenty or one in a hundred. If a borrower can't pay, nobody knows the chance of some compromise offer like selling at clearance prices to Approved Food at a lot less than the price you paid. The bottom of this blog post lists some firms that make offers for wholesale food near its sell-by date. If you have to take delivery of more food than you can eat, there is not much else online to say what you can do with it but you might have some use for bulk food and have all sorts of schemes. Talking of excitement, the hobby of thinking about food might encourage you to curry some over-date veg in the fridge instead of throwing it away, so you save that way as well.
  

• Interest
  

  There is interest of one or two pounds on the sizes of investment I've described and a three month loan, but there is a tick box you can tick to invest a lot more. One or two pounds is a lot of interest on ten or twenty pounds, for a three month loan. The annual percentage rates are at the top end of what investors can get, I think. In comparison Investly invoice finance pays around 10-20% to lenders on an auto-lend system: The loans only last a month or so, but your cash is re-lent automatically to the next one if business picks-up (it's a bit slow as I write) and it costs nothing to sign-up.  Other platforms like Rebuildingsociety had high rates of interest on offer when they started, which gradually dropped in an auction system.
  
  

  

  the morning after

  Rebuildingsociety are good at dealing-with defaults, but still have enough bad debts to take average returns down to the mid-teens. Lenders' experiments with sites like this will loose on a few like Bondora who just shovel-out money like Leaman Brothers and shrug when it doesn't come back. A better investment could be in selling cocaine to the director of Lehman Brothers - pictured - but that's probably illegal and I don't know whether he took decisions and drugs at the same time - it's just the way someone took a photograph that suggests it.
  

For borrowers and lenders - Default: what next?

This is a hunch. I have never dabbled in commodities trading so I might be quite ignorant about how often it comes to the crunch and commodities get delivered to lenders. And none of this has happened.

If there is a deliberate and very convincing fraud, the producer disappears leaving no commodity. This is a very old problem. Contracts were invented for this kind of situation. Anyway I doubt that a deliberate fraudster would pick such a public way to do it, with so many different people looking at the details, so that's a very tiny chance. Then there are natural disasters, illnesses and the like but I guess that just about every batch of food gets produced, into shops or warehouses and worth a lot more than the original sack of oats.

I guess that food companies want good publicity from their borrowing, and will do a lot to avoid defaulting on the loan if they can pay, but these things happen. "the situation could arise that [they] could not pay. In that case you continue to hold title to the the product until it is sold. You also have the option of requesting that the product be sent to you or a location you specify - at no additional cost. " - FAQ An online vote, run by Primestox.com, allows other investors to out-vote you on the best option, but I guess that a vote would allow some people to take the stock and others to hold-on for repayment or accept an offer if available. If the borrower is still in business and half solvent, I imagine that they want to pay later for the food that will sell, rather than return all of it. There are degrees of mess-up, from late-payment to late payment under legal threat to receivership to wind-up and non-existence, and I suppose that nobody wants to work down the list if they can stay at the first stages. "the producer may experience production issues affecting the quantity or quality they can produce. Alternatively they may have difficulty selling their product in the market. In such cases delays may occur to your payment. However in all cases you continue to hold title to the product until you're repaid in full with profit. If during this time period you wish to receive the product which you paid for, you can request its delivery to any UK address at no additional cost. " Late payment turns into the chance of no payment after a while. Sell-by dates get nearer.

With luck, the borrower might organise an option of very cheap sale and lenders might discuss whether they could do better. Takestock.com allow you to do something similar by opening an account and try to sell surplus food on a free small ad via an 18% escrow service. Takestock's details are further down the page. If 18% for an escrow service sounds high, you can see what other links I have found at the bottom of the page as well. There are loads of them under the heading "selling food from home and on classifieds sites", but none says "we pay near retail price at somewhere like Waitrose for an upmarket brand". They all look a bit clearance-ey.

Getting back to Primstox, their contract does
- not say that Primestox will use their commission money to pay for deliveries
- not say that Primestox invest in every loan so won't flog duds. I imagine that Primestox do invest in loans at this stage, just to try to balance lenders and borrowers, so they will learn from experience what works. Their low-budget way of working suggests that they don't have equity finance people pushing them to make money fast at all costs. There isn't a staff team and an office and a bunch of bills to pay in the short term; they can think in the long-term.
- not say that Primestox will run an eCommerce site or help any lender who does so, selling surplus food to other investers. I imagine that other investors are a sympathetic market for the one or two who have a tonne of soup on the doorstep. So after a default, in the worst case, you have invested far too much, and more food than you want to eat is plonked on your doorstep..

• If you have anything to do with catering you might find other uses. If you need contacts in catering, you might use the app that connects restaurants and their surplus food and customers who want cheap deals, you might already have a restaurant contact who might be open to ideas or make a suggestion, but the ones near me are generally bakeries. Anyway, a caterer might offer a dish of the day, or a special offer by the restaurant to bargain-hunters who use the app for that restaurant.
  
• If you have anything to do with food sales, an idea might come to mind like... - special offer food by a shop counter. Maybe your newsagent would borrow some food, and give you a credit note for 50p per jar sold for you to spend on other newsagent stock.
  
• If you have nothing to do with food sales, but want to start, Takestock.com membership is free. - free small ad and escrow service that charges  you 18% on any offer you accept
  
• If you plan to eat it the food, freezer space might help -for-sale.co.uk/freezer includes ads on sites like ebay and gumtree. Local searches are most likely and you might even find a free one on Trashnothing, or join the same site to give some food away. An app called Olio comes-up on search engine results, specifically for giving food to neighbours if they happen to have the same app. Maybe someone will offer you an apple crumble two miles away once you subscribe.
  
• I don't know much about those food bank collection points that you see in places like supermarkets. There are a few sites on search engines for locating organisations and collection vans that can use food. I suppose that a one-off donor of a freezer-load needs some scale between the nearest collection-point and the agency that can send a van. This list covers foodbanks, who might help. - theguardian.com/society/datablog/2012/jul/12/food-banks-uk-directory-guardian-readers

Background to the Primestox.com company

There are practically no references to the site on other sources. It looks more polished and sane than some sites that do things like bitcoin lending, or my own shoe shop that you should try, but less referenced from anywhere else. The borrowers are food businesses with web sites linked and which tend to link back.

https://www.check-business.co.uk/business/09915596/primestox-limited is the company. The check-business site would drop a couple of tiny hints from an Equifax report if there was anything to say, but there isn't - the business is too new. The Companies House entry doesn't state much more - just connections to West London from previous employers that are confirmed from the director's Facebook page and choice of software engineer, so the business looks UK-based. Linked-in profiles mention some people related. There are three shareholders and one of them seems busy employed in South Africa; only one is an "officer" on the Companies House form. The postal contact is the first floor above Starbucks in London's Oxford Street, also home to BG Partnership accountants and 23 other companies. There is no mention on P2Pmoney yet; I added a post on P2P independent forum, and P2P money have added this site to their list of P2P lending sites, just as one or two food companies have given the site a mention.

Software

The software looks a like crowd-funding software, which can be had for free. I don't know if it is Selfstarter.us but if there is one free open source piece of software, there will probably be others, cheap or free, and this company has used something similar-looking for the new purpose of P2P lending, which is otherwise expensive to get going, I think, for lack of free software. I don't know if this is unusual - it's good to see that it can be done. The company paid Alex Panichi, user interface web designer who answered an upmarket job ad and "worked to improved various steps in the user journeys. The user interface has been enhanced and refined. There has been lots of sketching, wire framing and hundreds of iterations to de-clutter the interface. In fact, the main challenge was to show the most relevant information to the user at each stage" So, £200 an hour for several evenings and weekends doing iterations on a general theme is a few thousand pounds, but not bad.

blog background

Written as a hobby and to promote Veganline.com for vegan shoes online - an online vegan shoe shop selling boots belts and jackets mainly made in the UK

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Selling food from home and on classifieds sites

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Ebay and the mainstream sites tend not to advertise food, but I have a log-on for Takestock.com that allows selling! The site doesn't have a huge amount on it, with a lot of the guide prices well over supermarket basics prices per kilo. People use it to advertise sales to new customers, I guess, rather than for regular turnover. I hope this list helps borrowers to shift surplus stock and repay their loans, but, when they default and can't make a decent offer for the food. maybe someone else among the lenders can use one of these to get something better or maybe it helps if a borrower has to take delivery of too much food to eat.

Takestock.com classifieds - allowed login

• Buy from their advertisers by signing-up and contacting them. It's a classifieds site for food. A photo and often a minimum order is available for each advert once you sign-up; guide prices are cheeky-high except for the odd overdate thing which is low.
  
• Delivery - postcode or place name on each advert but no map or search-by-distance. Most offer to help with delivery. Some have a place name like "London" which helps searching; a lot are in north england or Norfolk for vegetables. There is a box for questions which is a good place to ask if the seller would use your favourite cheap courier such as Parcel2go's UPS shop-to-shop service for up to something like 20kg for not much money. Parcelmonkey are good for courier quotes too.
  
• Sell to their readers by signing up and advertising - they take the money via their bank account and take ? 18% +VAT if there is no dispute. 8% on fresh food.. The selling page recommends a low minimum order and to offer help with delivery.
  

Amazon not yet sure

• Buy from them - for example https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scarlett-Mustard/b/ref=bl_dp_s_web_5324604031?ie=UTF8&node=5324604031&field-lbr_brands_browse-bin=Scarlett+%26+Mustard
  
• Delivery -
  
• Sell to them - not yet sure if it's possible. Hermes delivery costs are a problem. I don't see a "sell" tag next to the items on Amazon Groceries either, and if the brand isn't already for sale on Amazon, you have to persuade the site to list it.
  
  Amazon is the only classifieds site that comes-up if you search for words like "peas" "biscuits" or "chocolate" on for-sale.co.uk, bar the odd rare add on ebay or gumtree
  

other home retail

• There are ecommerce add-ons for facebook, I think, which might be free. Maybe Paypal links or something specialised. I don't know if facebook contacts would use them, but they might see the page and offer you cash. An idea for someone with a zillion facebook contacts.
• http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5232467 mentions facebook selling groups, a gumtree-like thing that I didn't know about
  
• Leaflet a hundred letterboxes with an explanation and half-price offer. Someone might be intrigued enough just to say hullo to a neighbour. Cheapest paper is from Wilko or supermarket basics. Cheapest ink is a CISS system on a printer or Epson Ecotank.
  
• Fly pitching, pop-up stalls, honesty boxes , vending machines... all a bit unfamiliar to buyers I think, who would pass-by to avoid being bothered, or assume the goods second-rate in some way. My aunt - do you know my aunt? - anyway she used to sell potted herbs in a market for the womens' institute. They were cheaper than the garden centre but people were just programmed to buy them from the garden centre. Anyway, if you know my aunt, you are on to something. If you don't know my aunt, you might want to try door-to-door leafleting to advertise an honesty box or a fly-pitch or a ring-the-doorbell-and-ask offer. Ringing other peoples' doorbells doesn't seem worth the hassle to customers, even ignoring the stress to you.
  
• Pop-up restaurants. There is something in this; I am not sure what
  
• Buying from self-employed people like stallholders could be a good habit to get into, in case one of them can suggest something if you are caught with a lot of stock. Easier if they know your face.
  

Expirybuy.com classifieds - didn't send a login

• Buy from their advertisers - it's a paypal system
  
• Delivery - ads say things like "ships to Blackburn"
  
• Sell to them - I've signed up, waiting for confirmation by email. No mention of commission yet. Still waiting for confirmation a few days later.
  

Gumtree

• Buy from their ads -  https://www.gumtree.com/search?search_category=all&q=freezer
  
• Delivery - parcel2go or similar
  
• Place an ad - there is only one food ad and two non-food in this category, but it might be free
  

Merkandi.co.uk classifieds - want £86 sign-up fee

• Buy from them - https://merkandi.co.uk/categories/food-beverage/26
  
• Delivery -
  
• Sell to them - same
  

Stockondeals.com/ - mainly Denmark so crossed out - typically electrical but some food

• Buy via their site
  
• Delivery -
  
• Sell via their site - it's EU and Danish state funded, so the commission might be low
  

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Selling to shops and wholesalers

Approvedfood.co.uk

• Buy from them - http://approvedfood.co.uk/
  
• Delivery - http://store.approvedfood.co.uk/delivery_charges £6 delivery on £17 minimum order
  
• Sell to them - http://store.approvedfood.co.uk/page?name=sell-to-us
  

Clearance Wholesale

• Buy from them - https://www.clearancewholesale.co.uk/contact no web shop - Grimsby cash & carry
  
• Delivery - apply for pallet deals
  
• Sell to them - https://www.clearancewholesale.co.uk/sell-my-stock
  

ClearanceXL.co.uk including Swinco.co.uk

• Buy from them - http://www.clearancexl.co.uk/epages/es136752.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es136752/Categories/%22Food%20%26%20Drink%22
  
• Delivery - http://www.clearancexl.co.uk/epages/es136752.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es136752/Categories/NEW__399_DELIVERY - £5.25 most areas. Free collection by appointment in Sheffield S9
  
• Sell to them - https://www.epayments.co.uk/epages/es136752.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es136752/Categories/%22ABOUT%20US%22/Supply_SWINCO has the email address

Companyshop.co.uk

• Buy from them - membership scheme offered as a staff perk by some employers.
• Delivery - sites around the UK. HQ in Yorkshire
• Sell to them - they sell surplus food and write about it - not sure if they pay or get donations

Eatbig

• Buy from them - http://www.eatbig.co.uk/shop/ - possibly cheaper per kilo on nuts, but usually expensive
• Delivery - http://www.eatbig.co.uk/delivery/ - £3-£5 or free over £40
  
• Sell to them? - they tend do sell catering-size packs - not sure how to contact
  

Factoryfoods

• Buy from them - no web shop
  
• Delivery - walk-in at Rotherham or Barnsley http://www.factoryfoods.uk/directions/
  
• Sell to them - http://www.factoryfoods.uk/sell-to-us/

Frugalitis

• Buy from them - https://frugalitis.com/ aka Essential Brands Ltd. Also sell to ex-pats.
• Delivery -
• Sell to them - ?  Phone: +44 116 3440001 Address: Online Division, Celandine  Road, Hamilton, Leicester, LE5 1SW.

Self Trading

Not quite sure what this one is - it once bought a supermarket's stock. Found by googling "short dated food"

SOS Wholesale

• Buy from them - apply for an account or use the Derby cash and carry.
  
• Delivery - apply
  
• Sell to them - http://www.soswholesale.co.uk/residual-stock-management/
  

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Unlikely

This lot are listed to save looking at them again, or just because they looked interesting http://www.londonpopups.com/p/advice-resources.html

Bargain Outlet

• Buy - discount shop in Newkey and Weston. Prices from 25p. May be the same as Affordable  Foods, who have a franchise system with a branch in north Blurton, Staffordshire.
  
• Delivery - walk in, retail
  
• Sell - "supermarkets get in touch" .... "buys from supermarkets"
  

Bigbarn.co.uk

• Buy
  
• Delivery
  
• Sell - looking for regular producers; food is sorted by manufacturer
  

Grapepip.com - wine only

• Buy - postcodes not given - prices start about £100 for 12 bottles - no licence or business needed. Buyers and sellers both pay 5% + VAT
  
• Delivery - "Please note that the location of each lot is clearly stated; as a Buyer, it is your responsibility to take note of the location prior to bidding as any subsequent transfer/delivery costs are the liability of the Buyer." Clearly stated to people who understand "Location: Octavian: Duty status: Under bond" on the first ad I looked-at.
  
• Sell - wine only - 5% + VAT "As long as your wine has been professionally stored in the UK since its original sale/shipment, you can list your wine on GrapePip. Please note, however, you will be required to provide documentation to confirm original purchase and subsequent storage in a UK warehouse of every lot listed on GrapePip. To find out more about how to sell your wine on GrapePip, please go to our Private Vendor Information Page. If you are a wine merchant looking to sell your wines on GrapePip, please go to our Trade Vendor Information Page." Winebinends is another wine-only firm that works as a broker - charging 30% commission to find a buyer with only one delivery hop to pay-for. They say that other clearance companies that have warehouses charge 70% and two delivery trips.
  

Mackenzietrading.co.uk - frozen food clearance wholesale for trade sellers

• Buy - "Essentially we are a frozen food broker: purchasing surplus stock from frozen food manufacturers...."
  
• Delivery - can involve storage and repacking in Lancashire
  
• Sell -  "... and selling this onto high street retailers and catering companies"
  

Nifties

• Buy - https://www.dontwastethetaste.co.uk/shop aka Nifties, Good for onions at a first look, but the web site is turned-off this February 2018 so you'd have to walk-in.
  
• Delivery - Delivery - https://www.dontwastethetaste.co.uk/ - £7, £2 in Dover or walk-into their Dover shop.
  
• Sell? - probably not for specialised upmarket products by the look of them
  

The Peoples Supermarket

• http://thepeoplessupermarket.org/  - no web ordering - £25 annual membership to work 4 hours a month and get 20% off
  
• Delivery - walk in supermarket in Lambs Conduit Street, North Central London
• Sell? - now owned by one wholesaler - history of one-off deals before that - web site statements about avoiding food waste
  

Toogoodtogo.co.uk

• Buy- app links you to bakeries or restaurants with closing-time bargains.
  
• Delivery - you need to link to a restaurant near you via the app which works on Ios or Android. Pay the app and go to collect the food.
  
• Sell - restaurants welcome. If you know a restaurant on the system, they might use the app to try to sell for you on commission.
  

Yumbies

• buy -
  
• delivery -
  
• sell - looking for regular batch producers not surplus stock - 18% charge
  

Not trading C...a ran just for the end of 2016 and start of 2017 Foodbargains Discountbargains.co.uk

Copydex Jointmaster instructions never used

Maybe nobody has ever used Copydex Jointmaster instructions in the history of the world, but a few people might be interested to know what they said, now that bits of these kits turn-up in junk shops.
Maybe someone can use these images to help put the things back into production if they were ever any good.

 

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Someone else's jointmaster pictures and comment.

This blog is from someone who has never used a Jointmaster for anything, but does make belts by hand and sells vegan boots belts and shoes at an online shop called Veganline.com Optical character recognition without the photos: INDEX TO CONTENTS Adjustable Angle Bracket     page # 14 Base of Jointmaster                 15 Bench Stops                         15 Buffer Pads                      4, 15 Bridle Joint                         8 Butt Joints 90°                      5 Care of Saw                          4 Closed Halving Joint                 7 Depth Stop                          14 Dovetail Joints, Tail           10, 11 Dovetail Joints, Recess         11, 12 Dovetail Halving Joints             12 Dowels                              15 Feather Cut                          9 Half Lap Mitre                      10 Joints, Examples                    13 Lap Joint                         5, 6 Marking Out                         16 Mitre Joint                          9 Open Halving, Joint               5, 6 Saw Cuts, 90°                        5 Saws, recommended types              4 Saw Guide Springs                   15 Saw Guide Pillars                   16 Selector Head                       14 Spare Parts List                    17 Tenons, Cutting                      5 Waste Removal                       16 Wedge, use of                       14 Notes for left-handed users         17 General hints on sawing and use of Jointmaster SAWING

• Always allow the saw to follow the guides — do not try to control its direction and do not use too much downward pressure.
• Move the saw backwards and forwards within the guides taking a LIGHT cut on each forward stroke.
• Take particular care not to overstroke and cause the saw to leave the guides, (the less you try to influence the saw the better the results are likely to be).
• A well sharpened saw requires little or no downward pressure. If, after a few trial cuts, an accurate saw cut is not obtained check the SAW. A saw with blunt or badly set teeth, or a saw with a twisted or bent blade, will never cut squarely and cleanly. If necessary, have the saw teeth sharpened or reset. However, avoid too great a set on the teeth.
• If there is an initial jerkiness in the action of the saw, check the setting of the teeth. Jerky saw action is usually the result of an over coarse set of the teeth and light honing with an oil stone, across the side of the teeth tips, should level these cutting points and provide a steady, easy and clean cutting operation.
• It is advisable to practice easy joints to get the feel of the Jointmaster before tackling major tasks.
• NOTE: Unless the wood being used is straight and has a 90° end cross section, completely accurate joints are impossible.

RECOMMENDED SAWS FOR GENERAL USE.

• Either a 12" tenon or back saw with a blade at least 3" deep; or a 22" hand saw with nine teeth per inch having small set on teeth.
• If the blade of the saw is not deep enough to reach required cut, raise workpiece on a flat parallel wooden packing strip (this will also avoid cutting into buffer pad).

GENERAL

• The Jointmaster is designed to take up to 4" x 2" (10cm x 5cm) for 90° cuts and up to 2" x 2" (5cm x 5cm) for 45(' cuts.
• Keep jig free from sawdust and check that dowels are fully seated in tapered holes and that buffer pads are flush with or below surface of base. Also check that laminate face of saw guides is adhered firmly in position.
• A range of angles other than 90° and 45° can easily be cut by positioning a dowel pin in selected degree marked hole at rear of jig. Normal cutting procedure applies.

HOW TO MAKE JOINTS
Securing the Jointmaster on working surface
The jig can be secured either permanently by screwing it on to the workbench or temporarily by the use of bench stops. Bench stops should be inserted into the holes at the base of the jig.
90° SAW CUTS OPEN HALVING OR LAP JOINT
(90° BUTT JOINTS, CUTTING OF TENONS ETC).

Insert dowel in the left hand 90° hole. Place wood against dowel and face of rear saw guide pillars. Saw through wood for 90° cut.


1 Place first part piece of wood on right side of jig. Slide adjustable angle bracket forward so that it lightly holds wood against the right side of the guide pillars. Tighten thumbscrew and remove wood.

BRIDLE JOINT

The 1st part or male section of the join is made using the adjustable angle bracket and 'C' blade of the selector head in precisely the same way as used for the closed halving joint. With the bridle joint, however, the saw cuts are made on each side of the wood to one-third of the thickness.

1 Gauge the width of the 2nd part by inserting in the adjustable angle bracket.
2 Mark wood to show one-third depth.
3 Cut the two sides of the recess on the first side of the 1st part, using 'C' selector head blade.

It will be found helpful after cutting the recess in one side to turn the wood 90° (i.e. onto its side) and then to insert the 'C' selector head blade into the edge of saw cut. The saw is then used to mark the position of the recess on the other side. The wood is turned a further 90' and the second recess is cut to one-third depth.

4 Remove waste (see page 16). The 2nd part (femalel is made by sawing vertically on the front saw guide pillar.

5 Having marked the end of the wood to show the one-third depth, position the wood vertically against the front saw guide pillar with the end approximately 1" below the top of the saw guide pillar.

6 Hold the wood in position with a G-clamp and align under saw (spring will hold saw in suspended position) using a square to ensure 90° against the base of the jig. Note: the saw cut or ken must be on the`waste'side of the line showing the width of the slot to be cut.

7 Saw to required depth.

8 Remove waste, initially with a drill and finally with a sharp chisel.

p #8

MITRE JOINTS

The Jointmaster has unique advantages over the conventional mitre box in that the wood is moved and the saw is always used in the same direction.

A dowel is inserted in the appropriate 45° hole and the wood to be cut is laid against it and the rear saw pillar, as illustrated. Precise positioning of the cut is ensured by lining the wood up under the saw, held in the suspended position by the saw guide springs Before sawing, it will be found helpful to use the wedge for holding the wood firmly in the required position. A dowel is inserted into any convenient hole with the wedge pressed between it and the wood to be cut (see illustration).

An alternative method of cutting accurate mitres is to place dowels in each of the two holes immediately in front of the rear saw guide pillar. A large mitre dowel should be placed in the right hole. For opposite cuts, the mitre dowel should be placed in the left hole. An additional dowel is placed in one of the forward 45' holes. When using this method the wood must be cut first at 90°. It is then placed with the 90° cut end into the two adjacent dowels and against the inside of the 451 front dowel. A feather cut is then easily achieved. This method is very helpful when cutting picture frames since the sides of the frame can be cut first at 90° to the exact length required. If a short piece of wood is to be cut, use the central 45° position for exact control.

p #9
HALF LAP MITRE
DOVETAIL JOINTS for the tail

1 Cut an open halving joint on the 1st part, following the instructions on page 5.
1 Cut wood off at 90°
2 Place two dowels in the two adjacent holes immediately in front of the rear saw guide pillar; the large mitre dowel going into the right hand hole and a dowel in the appropriate front 45° hole.
3 Place the wood with the open halving joint against the two adjacent dowels with the wood against the 45° dowel.
4 Make a feather cut to produce a 45° angle on the open tenon.
5 For the 2nd part, cut off the wood at a 90° angle
6 Place the wood with the cut 90° end against the two dowels inserted in the adjacent holes in front of the rear saw pillar, and against the appropriate 45' front dowel.
7 Make a feathercut to half the thickness of the wood.
8 Remove waste with a sharp chisel.

2 Use wedge to mark the angle of the tail on both faces of the wood, as illustrated. It will be found helpful to lay the edge of the wood and the wedge on a flat surface to control the pencil line.
3 Reverse wood and draw the second line (see illustration).

p #10
4 To gauge length of tail required, place 2nd part in which the recess is to be cut on the right side of the jig, sliding the adjustable angle bracket forward so that it lightly holds the wood against the right side of the saw guide pillars.
5 Tighten thumbscrew and remove the wood.
6 Insert dowel in the 90°, hole; and place the selector head on the adjustable angle bracket with the'T blade facing you, blade downwards.
7 Place wood against the 90° dowel, with the cut end against the 'T' face of the selector head.
8 Make saw cut down to the line showing the depth of the tail shoulder.
9 Reverse wood and make a second cut to the depth of the tail shoulder. If several tails are to be made, the depth stop should now be set.
10 Place the or blade of the selector head into the slot in the wedge, and press the blade down so that the top of the blade is just below the blunt end of the wedge.
11 Move the adjustable angle bracket to the front channel.
12 Place the selector head, complete with the fitted wedge, on the adjustable angle bracket — adjusted so that the left side of the wedge is approximately 1/8" from the laminated face of the left front saw guide.
13 Place wood against the front saw guide pillar with the top of the wood in line with the top of the wedge. Use a G-clamp to hold firmly in position and saw out waste down to the shoulder saw cut. Note: the saw cut must be on the waste side of the line.
14 Loosen G-clamp, rotate wood 180°, and re-position to cut second side of tail down to shoulder.

p #11
FOR THE RECESS
DOVETAIL HALVING JOINT

1 Using the dovetail, mark the depth of recess required.
2 Insert dowel in 90° hole. Place wedge against 90° dowel and left rear saw guide pillar, with the thick end of the wedge against the saw guide pillar.
3 Place wood against wedge and position so that the saw makes the right hand saw cut. The cut must be made on the waste side of the line showing the recess.
4 Saw down to the depth required for the tail.
5 The left hand saw cut line is now marked on wood, taking care to ensure tight fit.
6 Replace wedge so that the thick end is against the 90° dowel.
7 Move the wood to the right and align under the saw held bythe guide springs to cut the fell hand side of the recess. The saw cut must be made on the waste side of this line.
8 Remove waste from the recess with a chisel.

1 Make the tail, following instructions on page 10.
2 Cut away half the thickness of the tail using a 90° dowel and rear saw guide pillar.
3 Make recess to required depth, following instructions on this page.

p #12
These are some of the joints you can make with the Jointmaster

Dovetail Halving

Housing Halved

Cross Halving

Mitre with Half Lap

Corner Halving

p #13
General use of Jig and Accesssories

WEDGE
The wedge provided is cut at an angle of 8;. It is primarily intended for the sawing of dovetails (see page 10). It will also be found useful (together with a packing strip when necessary) for clamping the wood during sawing or when the jig is used as a glueing frame. Any convenient dowel hole (marked 451 can be used. There is, however. an extra dowel hole for clamping purposes on each side of the central rectangular slot between the two saw guide pillars.

DEPTH STOP
PLASTIC NUT AND GUIDE N. : r
TENON SAW RIB
PLASTIC HEAD
TENON SAW

SAW GUIDE PILLARS
Usage: When making a number of similar joints, consider-able saving of time can be achieved by using the depth stop. This stop when set and used with a tenon saw (or similar saw with a ribbed back) limits the downward travel of the saw. It is usual to fix the depth stop in the guide column A, furthest from the operator. In this way the depth stop when correctly set will take care of the depth of cut on the hidden face of the work, whilst the operator can ensure parallelism of cut bycontrolling the depth of cut on the "visual" side of the work Note: Care should be taken to make sure that the saw does not miss or override the depth stop. Use only the lightest downward pressure of the saw for best results. The depth stop can be removed without altering the depth setting and replaced to its original pos-ition as required. Take care when replacing the stop to ensure that the depth stop is correctly located.

Insert the threaded portion of the screw into the groove behind the fixed saw guide strip. Make sure that the plastic spring nut is the correct way round and is resting on top of the guide column.
Adjustment: A) Make a sawcut in a workpiece to the required depth using a tenon saw with a ribbed back edge and leave saw "balance" in the saw cut. B) Rest plastic nut of depth stop on top of guide column and adjust height of the depth stop by rotating the screw in the plastic nut until the top of the cylindrical plastic head just touches the under-side of the saw rib. C) Sway the saw slightly to the right so that it de-presses the plastic springs then insert depth stop into the receiving hole in the guide column behind the saw guide. ID) Allow the saw to regain its normal position and check whether the plastic head of the depth stop rests correctly against the underside of the rib of the saw if not sway the saw to the right to make minor adjustments. E) Make a trial sawcut and check depth.
SELECTOR HEAD AND ADJUSTABLE ANGLE BRACKET The selector head and adjustable angle bracket are used for automatically gauging the width of the 90° joint recess. The selector head is designed to com-pensate for the width of the saw cut (kerf). The com-pensation for the saw cut is dependent upon the type of joint being constructed and the selector head is designed accordingly.

SELECTOR HEAD
THUMB SCREW


(a)
ADJUSTABLE ANGLE BRACKET

p #14
For open ended recesses, the selector head is used with the blade marked 'T facing towards you and with the tapered end of the blade downwards. When making closed joints, the selector head is used with the blade marked 'C' towards you again with the tapered end downwards. The adjustable angle bracket slides in a groove on the right side of the saw guide pillar and is held in the required position by a thumbscrew into the base. To remove the adjustable bracket, simply remove the thumbscrew from the jig. There are two positions where the angle bracket can be screwed down. For narrower pieces of wood the bracket should be screwed into the far right screw hole (not dowel hole), as illustrated earlier(a). Forwider pieces of wood the bracket should be turned 180° and fixed to the left hand screw hole. The selector head has to then be repositioned as illustration (b). Note: the 'T' blade of the selector head will be found useful as a length stop for short work, i.e. cutting dowels, etc. Normally, the adjustable angle bracket is fitted with the upright towards the saw guide pillar. Additional length can be obtained by re-fitting the adjustable angle bracket in the groove with the upright portion away from the saw guide pillar.

BUFFER PADS Two reinforced nylon buffer pads are fitted on the sawing line between the two saw guide pillars. These buffer pads are designed to protect the saw if the user inadvertently continues the sawing action when the saw cut has been completed and can be rotated to maintain this protection. They can also be replaced or re-positioned by inserting a probe through the corres-ponding hole in the underside of the base plate. Note: the base plate is diecast from Mazak (a zinc alloy). If the saw should strike the base plate, damage to the saw teeth will be minimal.

THE DOWELS There are three types of dowels, all illustrated on Page 3 . These fall into the following categories: — Bench stops — Ordinary dowels (tapered) — Mitre dowels (for use with mitre joints). These are precision made from reinforced nylon. The taper on the dowel matches the taper of the holes in the base of the Jointmaster. This self-seating taper ensures an accurate vertical fit but some pressure is advisable to seat the dowel fully. If excessive pressure is used, the dowels can be removed easily by a blunt rod through the corresponding hole in the underside of the base.

BENCH STOPS Two tapered holes in the front of the base of the jig are provided. By inserting a dowel in each of these holes the Jointmaster can be held firmly against the edge of a bench or table.

THE BASE The base of the Jointmaster is a precision die casting. The tapered holes into which the dowels are inserted are each marked to show the angle that each will produce. Unlike the traditional mitre box, the Jointmaster allows the saw to be used in the same direction always. The wood is moved to the required angle and therefore control of the saw isalways maintained regardlessof theangle of cut. To maintain the accuracy of the Jointmaster, some care must be taken to remove sawdust as it accumu-lates: the wood needs to be placed accurately against the saw guide pillar, and the dowels seated firmly into their tapered holes.
SAW GUIDE SPRINGS
SAW GUIDE SPRING

P
SAW GUIDE SPRING RETAINING ENLARGED --:- BOLT CURVE DOWN WHEN FITTING It7 A special reinforced nylon spring is fitted to each of the Right Hand saw guide pillars. These springs assist in holding the saw upright against the saw guide faces. The springs also allow the saw to be suspended above the wood to ensure very accurate positioning of the wood before the saw cut is commenced. Each saw guide spring is held in position by a screw through the side of the saw guide pillar. The springs can be replaced when necessary (see sketch) — the spring leaf should be curved downward. To insert the saw blade between the guide springs and the saw guide face, keep the saw blade vertical and apply a light pressure to the saw against the guides. This will compress the springs and so open a gap allowing the saw to slide downwards. When the guides are new the initial rate of wear may seem excessive but this wear will progressively reduce as the jig becomes "run in".

SELF TAPPING SCREW

p #15
General use of Jig and Accesssories
SAW GUIDE PILLARS The sawing face on the inside of each Left Hand guide pillar is protected by a wear-resistant laminate, and is held in position. Should they eventually wear, however, they can be replaced (see sketch).
SAW GUIDE PILLAR

LAMINATE
RETAINING BOLT
The saw guide pillars a e designed to fit correctly into the base and are held in position by bolts. Always ensure that these bolts are secure.
MARKING OUT (90° Crosscut Joints, etc.)

As the jig has automatic setting, it is not usually necessary to mark out, in detail the joint which you are to make apart from: a) The position of the joint along the length of the workpiece — this can be as little as the position of the right hand edge of the joint only. b) The depth of the joint i.e. the depth to which the saw-cuts are to be made. Item (a) above requires only a rule or other simple means of determining a position.
Item (b). The depth of the joint recess can be marked out by measurement or alternatively the position can be marked out using the marking on the 8" wedge. Viz. (1) Select a position on the workpiece adjacent to the joint, and make sure the edges of the workpiece are square. (2) Place the wedge diagonally across the work-piece such that the two lines (shown Nos. 1 and 5 in the diagram) are opposite the edges of the workpiece. THIS IS IMPORTANT
Line 3 will show the point of half thickness. Lines 2 and 4 show the points of a third thickness. Other marking out is described where necessary against the specific joint instructions. It is advisable to mark the joint depth on both opposite faces of the workpiece so that the parallelity of the sawcuts can be checked.
REMOVAL OF WASTE

SCREWDRIVER
LIMITING SAWCUTS
Method 1. Using a wood chisel. This is the conventional method which is shown in numerous woodworking books and magazines.
Method 2. Make additional sawcuts at approximately 1/4" spacings from the limited sawcuts. Make use of the Depth Stop to be sure not to make the sawcut deeper than the finished joint. Place a screwdriver or similar shaped lever to the bottom of the middle intermediate sawcut (as sketch). Gently lever and remove the cut section. Repeat along the length of Joint. Clean up bottom with a rasp or chisel. Note: When using this method make the section at the ends as thin as possible and slightly under depth. This will help to create a clean edge and avoid breaking away the good material.
 
p #16
NOTES FOR LEFT-HANDED USERS.
There are two methods of cutting mitre joints (see section on Mitre Joints, page 9). Left-handed users may prefer to follow the instructions below for some common joints. 45° Mitres
a) Place dowels in position, placing the wider one in the left hole. Place wood in position, holding it firmly against the dowel placed in the front right hand 45' hole. Proceed to saw. Mitre Joints
b) Insert dowel in top right hand corner. Lay wood against dowel and the rear saw pillar. Before sawing, it will be found helpful to use the wedge for holding the wood firmly in the required position. A dowel is inserted into any convenient hole with the wedge pressed between it and the wood to be cut. 90° Cuts Insert dowel in right hand 90° hole. Place wood against dowel and face of rear saw guide pillars. Proceed to saw. Closed halving joints The procedure for closed halving joints is the same as detailed in body of this booklet, except that instead of using the left hand 90° dowel position, the right hand 90° should be used, with the wood placed firmly against the rear saw guide pillars and the dowel.

SPARE PARTS SERVICE PRICE LIST (1st October 1981) FOR U.K. AND EIRE ONLY (Prices for Overseas on request)
Ref. No. JM 201/3 JM 202/3 JM 203/3 JM 204/3
JM 205/3 JM 206/3 JM 207/3 JM 208/3 JM 209/3 JM 210/3
JM 211/3
JM 212/3
Angle Bracket Buffers Pads Depth Stop 4 Tapered dowels, 2 Bench stops, 1 Mitre dowel Saw Guide Laminate Saw Guide Spring Selector Head Thumbscrew Wedge Saw Guide Pillars complete 1 pillar with laminate & retaining bolt, 1 pillar with spring & retaining bolt. Saw Guide Pillars complete set of 4 Rubber Feet
Price incl. of. VAT 45p each 35p per pack of 4 35p per pack of 2 57p per pack of 7
35p per pack of 4 • 45p per pack of 4 45p each 35p per pack of 2 35p each
£1.72 per pair
£3.10 (2 of each) £0.07 per pack of 4
When ordering spare parts please provide a list of your requirements quoting ref. nos. together with clear details of your name and address for use as label and cheque or postal order to the value as listed above. Additional stamps for postage are NOT required.
Please address all correspondence to: Consumer Services Department Copydex Limited, 1 Torquay Street, London W2 5EL
p #17
(Copydex merged into a larger firm later-on and dropped the Jointmaster product)

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Tiled Table - 4 pages

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Matching Tables - 4 pages

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Shelf Unit - 4 pages

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