Cleveland Tools

[Michael Burbidge]

I know from an email I received a few weeks ago that Cleveland tools was struggling before the news about the chapter 11 broke. This can’t be good for them. It would be tough to loose them. Not sure where I would get the tools, especially the Vans specialty tools.

If you need tools, now is a good time to buy them.

 

[RV-Ogler]

https://www.yardstore.com/

My A&P buddy who specializes in aircraft sheet metal work introduced me to Yardstore

I also wish all the best to Cleveland tools and ordered one of their T-shirt’s too

 

[Jetmart]

Not to take anything away from Cleveland but I had very good service from Plane Tools.

https://planetools.com

 

[dmat]

I am almost certain flyboys accessories purchased Cleveland....

D

 

[Steve Ashby]

Clevelan Tools is the best

Guys,
There is no need to abandon Clevelan Tools. They are up and running and providing great service!

I just placed an order with them and received immediate shipment, along with a great personal note. These folks have been providing us with experienced and knowledgeable advice for decades. They have never failed the RV community. All that happened is that sales slumped because of the difficulties at Vans. They still have the same reliable products and excellent personnel.

Clevelan’s new owner has an impeccable Homebuilt pedigree and he is obviously dedicated to keeping his team together and building the brand.

For the love of God, let’s not abandon them now.

Steve Ashby

 

[dmat]

Agreed, Cleveland is in great hands!

Dan

 

[vfrazier]

I am almost certain flyboys accessories purchased Cleveland....

D

I'm Blake's dad. I can verify that Cleaveland Aircraft Tools (aka CAT, by the family) is indeed in good hands and was indeed purchased by Blake, who also runs www.flyboyaccessories.com

Blake did indeed ask for customer support, a bold and transparent thing to do, but it shouldn't be interpreted as that they are "circling the drain." That isn't at all the case. We're not gonna let that happen.

Other companies may not have said anything, preferring to just hang their hopes on having a sale. Blake chose to simply say "Hey, we've just bought this company, after a long period of investigating it, and due to unexpected external circumstances, we need some cash flow right now. If you're putting off any tool purchases, do us a favor and pull the trigger."

To me, that is the right thing to do. We're all in this because we love aviation AND the people involved. Speaking for Team Rocket/Frazier Aviation Products, and for CAT and Flyboy Accessories (without their authorization... 'cuz I'm the dad), I can say that, naturally, we have some customers who simply buy from us, but that we also have a HUGE number of customers who become very good friends. And that is a big reason why we do the things we do.

One more comment: The Lauritsen family and their staff have been great throughout the transition and beyond. It has been, and continues to be, an honor for our family to continue with their wonderful company.

 

[HFS]

It Ain't Cleveland!

It's CLEAVELAND!!

YMMV - but this ain't wrong!

HFS

 

[BlakeFrazier]

No wonder my nose was itching!

Hi folks, Blake here. You know how sons are, never letting our dads get the last word.

First off, thanks to all who have supported us over the years and double thanks to those who saw the video and helped out how you could (also if you ordered a shirt, it should be shipping soon... just got them from the printer this morning!).

It's a bit tough to know how much to share about the business situation but the long and short of it is that my wife and I took out a loan to make the purchase. That loan is due every month whether we are making sales or not, so that's really the only thing that had us in a pinch.

As long as our sales numbers are hitting a reasonable percentage of what we expect based on historical sales data, we should be able to keep up with everything and pay the loan with plenty of margin leftover.

If we had seen a few months of normal sales numbers before things started to slow down, our plan was to squirrel away a cash reserve of 3-6 months of loan payments so that we wouldn't have to sweat it if something bad happened (this is called "foreshadowing").

But to be frank we didn't have a few months of normal sales; we bought the business in June and in July... something bad happened. We started to see a pretty big downturn in our total sales. A lot of our business comes from builders buying tool kits around the same time that their airframe kits are shipping. So if airframe kits aren't shipping or shipping is slowed by other factors, we feel it!

Thanks to a big response to our video in November, we were able to get caught up to our A/P obligations and loan payments. We're on stable footing for now, and not planning on going anywhere.

Sounds like Van's will be resuming shipping on kit sales at a pretty fair clip very soon. I've got a lot of confidence that the team at Van's can get through this difficult time and we can get back to level flight soon!

 

[Antonitis]

I'm fairly new to the experimental aircraft community. I've attended OSH with my son for the first time in '21. By that time I knew we were going to purchase a -12is kit and I stopped by the Cleaveland Tool booth to say hello to Mike, since his YouTube videos were helpful, even through I wasn't a builder yet. I didn't speak with Mike, but I did spend 20 minutes talking to DJ, Mike's step-mom I believe. DJ was amazing. We had a great conversation and my son and I left with complementary CAT t-shirts.

We returned to OSH in '22 and '23 and had similar experiences. By this point, we were builders and had placed many Cleaveland orders. We thanked DJ for being such a great part of our build, and told her those t-shirts were the greatest conversation starters around. She laughed and said she hears that all the time. For OSH '23, we received some new shirts since both my son and I had outgrown our originals.

Earlier this year, I placed a couple orders and spoke with Blake due to a mixup on USPS's part. Blake's a cool guy, and was patient with my "urgent #6 dimple die order". From what I see, he's definitely continuing the family-owned feel of Cleaveland Aircraft Tools and cares about the community and his customers.

Let's prop them up as much as possible.

Jason

 

[squeakersc063]

Hi folks, Blake here. You know how sons are, never letting our dads get the last word.

First off, thanks to all who have supported us over the years and double thanks to those who saw the video and helped out how you could (also if you ordered a shirt, it should be shipping soon... just got them from the printer this morning!).

It's a bit tough to know how much to share about the business situation but the long and short of it is that my wife and I took out a loan to make the purchase. That loan is due every month whether we are making sales or not, so that's really the only thing that had us in a pinch.

As long as our sales numbers are hitting a reasonable percentage of what we expect based on historical sales data, we should be able to keep up with everything and pay the loan with plenty of margin leftover.

If we had seen a few months of normal sales numbers before things started to slow down, our plan was to squirrel away a cash reserve of 3-6 months of loan payments so that we wouldn't have to sweat it if something bad happened (this is called "foreshadowing").

But to be frank we didn't have a few months of normal sales; we bought the business in June and in July... something bad happened. We started to see a pretty big downturn in our total sales. A lot of our business comes from builders buying tool kits around the same time that their airframe kits are shipping. So if airframe kits aren't shipping or shipping is slowed by other factors, we feel it!

Thanks to a big response to our video in November, we were able to get caught up to our A/P obligations and loan payments. We're on stable footing for now, and not planning on going anywhere.

Sounds like Van's will be resuming shipping on kit sales at a pretty fair clip very soon. I've got a lot of confidence that the team at Van's can get through this difficult time and we can get back to level flight soon!

Have you considered looking at some of the other kit builders like Sonex and throwing together easy to order kits for those the same way you do for the Vans planes? I can't imagine the logistics is too crazy since they're the same tools just in different quantities.