The first woodworking hand tools that I ever purchased new (intended for furniture making..) were from Traditionalwoodworker.com. I ordered a marking gauge, and if I remember correctly, a 1/2 inch chisel and a mallet. I still have those tools and they work as well as the day I first received them. As time passed, I ordered more tools from Traditional Woodworker on occasion and they always seemed to me to be a good company to deal with.
So yesterday evening I went online to order a large auger bit (oddly, not for a woodworking project in the furniture making sense) and one of the places I checked was Traditional Woodworker. Let me correct that, TW was one of the places I attempted to check, because I could not find the web page. I did some more checking and I could not seem to find any indication of the site being changed, or revamped, or simply shut down. Furthermore, I checked some forums and for the time being nobody else seems to have heard anything one way or the other, either.
So I’m writing this brief post just to see if any body has heard any information regarding the whereabouts of the Traditional Woodworker online tool store. My searches have turned up absolutely nothing. I’m hoping that somebody out there who happens to see this post may have heard something and if so, could please let me know what you turned up.
Thanks
The Slightly Confused Woodworker 
I got the 404 error when I tried to log in online. The 1-800 number appears to be working – I got message saying they were out in warehouse leave a message or order online or via email. I didn’t try the email but maybe they are being attacked by the bad guys on line?
I hope it’s just an internet issue and nothing more. I can’t say I’ve ordered from them a lot, but whenever I did the service was very good.
Unfortunately I had to order the auger elsewhere, but I would still like to keep them in mind.
Thanks for the info!
Bill
Very odd, their site has been down since Dec. 24, 2016.
That doesn’t sound like good news. Hopefully this is just a restructuring and nothing more.
Thanks for the info!
Bill
Weird, I can’t find any trace of them, I’m sure I’ve seen them but they aren’t even coming up in search results here in Australia so who knows? Then I got distracted on Chris Vesper’s website, I see he comes up on the first page now for that term, ‘Traditional Woodworker online tool store’ I didn’t recognise anyone else in the list though. I’m going to see his new workshop at a hand tool event next weekend, can’t wait! https://www.vespertools.com.au/
Another commenter mentioned they’ve been down for months. With that, I have to think they’ve gone out of business, but I’m holding out hope that maybe they are just restructuring/reorganizing their company.
At that, now that I think about it, last summer I had attempted to order some saw files from them and they were out of stock on nearly all of them, which was unusual. That could have been a indication of things to come.
Thanks
Bill
And I have one of those squares, awesome! Brought one from him a few years back, had to fork out some cash I didn’t have at the time but it’s well worth it. Love the little tab that helps it sit flush on the work piece, I even sit here clicking it in and out, love how it clicks in place in both positions while still pulling away just below the reference surface when you want it out of the way. They are very well made and balanced. Highly recommend them to anyone looking for a lifetime tool, it’s an investment you’ll only make once in a lifetime.
He won’t let you touch them at the show though, – until you buy one then you can handle it all you want. I don’t blame him, too many grubby fingers at wood shows! But now that I’ve been using it a while it still looks quite clean and doesn’t rust tarnish or corrode which is great.
I’ve never seen a Vesper tool in “the flesh”, so I can only go by what I’ve read online. Everybody seems to love them. I can’t blame him for not wanting his tools manhandled by hundreds of people because people don’t tend to respect displayed items. From what little I know, Vesper is basically a one man show, so I’m sure he takes a lot of care in building each individual tool, so it’s no surprise that he is protective of them.
Thanks again!
Bill
I ordered a couple planes and a saw from them in late January/early February,if memory serves, website was up that day but I placed the order by phone, had a nice chat and he told me of some up coming sales. Checked the website a couple weeks later for those sales and they have been gone since. My guess is their server crashed and that server/website also kept up inventory, big loss for a small business if there was not a recent backup.
Sorry about the late response as I just saw your comment. I will have to check them out again. Every transaction I’ve ever had with TW was pleasant and straightforward, and I would have no issue ordering from them in the future. So I hope everything is okay there.
Thanks!
Bill
There’s a bit of discussion here, you might have already seen it http://lumberjocks.com/topics/206738
Thanks Andrew. I came across this not too long ago. I’m still seeing conflicting stories, but it appears that they are out of business at least for the time being. A red flag goes up when something like this happens and it goes unannounced so I have to believe they are gone..
Bill