To the Dewalt Tool Company and President John Schiech

Please be advised that you are in receipt of a letter from the Department of Letters of Consumer and Social Concern

(…and for the convenience of readers of the letters, any and all correspondence from the subject party of the letter can be printed here in response to the letters in question)

My name is Benjamin Shook, Spokesman for “The Department.”  Our business here at the DLCSC is to apprise companies and organizations of social interest of potential areas of improvement, expansion and awareness.

I would like to take this rare opportunity to address a couple of important issues that have recently come to my attention regarding a product manufactured by the Dewalt Tool company.  I am a longtime user of Dewalt tools and have used them widely in my studio (www.benshook.com) as well as advocated for their use and purchase at seminars and presentations around the world.  To date, my studio has spent in the neighborhood of $12,000 on Dewalt products.  In the beginning I even used Dewalt tools as semi-stationary equipment in my wood shop… until the time I could afford to upgrade to 220V technology and ultimately 3-Phase… which are some areas of interest I would like to discuss with you at another time.

As a side note, my studio recently procured a set of DW18V Cordless Impact drivers and the last few weeks have been filled with mirth and elation as to their performance.

Today I would like to raise awareness about a specific product and some shortcomings which came to my attention recently.  The tool in question is the DW321K Variable Speed Heavy Duty Top Handle Jig Saw, pictured below:

I purchased this tool sometime in the year A.D. 2005 and have used it sparingly and always done proper maintenance.  I recently had occasion to use the saw to cut rafter tails for a small outbuilding I designed and built, pictured here:

The dilemmas I ran into with this saw are as follows:

and occurred despite using the most robust and expensive blades (I believe a four pack of 3.25″ ran $12 from Home Depot)

1) The blades wandered errantly through the cuts, drawn from a template regardless of all attempts to correct with blade speed and thrust, creating a nearly impossible flush line through the material and replicability very hard to achieve.

2) No matter how one holds one’s hands upon the saw during the cut, the exhaust fan blows the material directly into the user’s face.

While seemingly minor, these two issues are cause for ample frustration, especially when a fine end product is the goal.  One would think that the model of this saw, its description and its cost would elicit confidence to cut a rafter tail in 1.5″ framing material.

I’m sure this issue has already been brought to your attention and that the engineers at the Dewalt Industrial Tool Co. have already begun correcting the issue.  I have likewise designed several alterations which I think would greatly increase the function of the tool and would cherish the opportunity to share them with you at your convenience.  (I can be reached at ben@benshook.com).

Please receive every best wish and gratitude for years of enjoyment from your tools,

Benjamin Shook

Spokesman for the Department of Letters of Consumer and Social Concern

Foreward: this is a note to the Reverend Billy (www.revbilly.com)–who you may know as the star of “What Would Jesus Buy” and a man staunchly opposed to Starbucks Coffee, to the extent that he has been arrested I believe more than 20 times for “exorcising” a corporate Starbucks cash register.  He has a forum on his website which acts as a confessor to his congregation and I sent him this, which I believe also belongs in the Letters of Consumer and Social concern, as it details one of the positive attributes of the company, whose brand is a mermaid.  Though she doesn’t have nipples.  He runs the church of stop shopping; I met with him several years ago at Burning Man and continue to follow his paths of righteous indignation.

reverend billy… i rode with you on the green bus this past burn, out to the temple, stood at your side as you prepared the playa for forgiveness; thank you, falafel, or bless you, for i have sinned.  good.
the main sin i would like to discuss involves starbucks; it might be a form of encouragement as well… for those disheartened in your congregation (our congregation) about the mermaid without nipples.  i watched some of your videos, in which you peacefully “exorcize” (?) demons from the fateful corporation’s cash register.  i almost cried as i watched your arrest(s), and thought to myself, something is terribly wrong here… we’ve got a misunderstanding.  starbucks just wants to be starbucks, you know, the mermaid without nipples, employees without determination, megalomaniacal corporate world domination, etc. and you just want to get those demons out of the cash register… and somewhere between these two seemingly harmonic interests, there is a disconnect: i.e. managers prohibiting your ingress onto store properties, and arrival of police, etc.  (this is where my confession begins…)
i have known, intuitively, for years, what you have recently made explicit for me about starbucks: that something is wrong… i just thought their coffee tasted burnt… when really it’s the spirit of the coffee turning over in its afterlife, rising up against the corporation (bitterness, bad aftertaste) IN SPIRIT because of corporate transgressions against its origins: i.e. ethiopia, etc. and fair treatment of its farmers, branders, fathers, really.  this is what i know now thanks to the church of stop shopping, halalujiah, jalapeno.  nevertheless, i have been subconsciously aware of this for years and i believe subconsciously transferring this understanding upon the mega-entity the whole time.  as you know (my confession is beginning here…) there are starbucks on every fifth block of every city grid-printed upon most of the continents of EARTH.  and, as you probably also know, being a fellow meek global traveler, this grid upon EARTH does not offer up too many public bathrooms…  i don’t mind making water outside (pee), especially in france and spain where almost anyone does so, perhaps to the slight chagrin of the authorities, but nonetheless not against the law.  now, to make earth pass, or, in other words, to do one’s duty: this cannot be so easily accomplished on the public thoroughfare of just any city, anywhere on earth and, as you probably know, nature can sometimes press a man in urgent ways.  i must confess that, in travel, even in my own fair home town, when away from the holy ghost of my own domestic toilet, the nearest one–when nature pushes its turtle head at the back entrance to the temple–there is always a starbucks nearby!  do you read my meaning, father?  falafel!  EVERY FIFTH BLOCK!  so i feel that you may have overlooked this incredible capacity–CAPACITY–that starbucks has!  one simply walks in and very politely asks the employee at the demon ridden cash counter for the key to the restroom and–since every good natured yuppie and insouciant shopper known to man has been through that line–the employee hands you the glorious key and the clean, well kept, PRIVATE PROPERTY, nicely tiled bath room becomes all yours for those few precious moments while you commune with mother earth, and offer her back your gift of pure gold!  and you offer it to starbucks too!  and in the end it is not even necessary to purchase coffee.  i confess that i have done this many  times without purchasing coffee, father.  forgive me, for i have sinned!  amen, falafel!

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benshook studio
imagine | design | create
www.benshook.com

“…Furthermore, I am of the opinion that Carthage should be destroyed.”
–Cato