Monday, September 10, 2007

The SuperSear II

After Steve had the SuperSears (there were two different designs) manufactured and sent to me, it was obvious to me during testing that there were going to once again be several problems with another one of Steve-in-NC's designs and manufacturing. His SuperSear’s were a failure because they were not hard enough in some areas and too thin and brittle in others. When adjusting per Steve’s instructions, the tip would break because it was so thin and brittle.

Also, because of the improperly placed and drilled spring retaining hole, the spring would not stay seated in the hole when installing. In order to get it in and for it to stay in place, the customer would need to bend the spring and make a hook in it, which would shorten it and made it very difficult for some to install. When adjusting per Steve’s instructions, the tip would break because they so thin and brittle. I had to replace many of them because the tips would break off and/or they would wear down on the edge where the sear would seat.

I wound up having to hand heat treat every one of them and then refinish and resurface them to be able to make them acceptable to put them on the market even though the spring issue was still there. It was another case repairing his blunders, poor workmanship and design flaws.

I decided that I was no longer going to market his “SuperSear” and that I was tired of repairing his sears. I went to a local machinist that I had come to know and explained to him my problems and asked him for his opinions and if it were possible to both redesign as well as improve it.

After a couple of weeks of spare time working on it and making prototypes and testing we come up with a new design although it was based somewhat on the original concept that worked exceptionally well. It was also far superior in strength, design and manufacturing than Steve’s SuperSear.

Below in the top picture is Steve-in-NC's SuperSear design. As can be seen, the spring is pulling the sear reward and a strian on the pivot, a change in the sear edge and radius, a change in the pivot and a big change in the nose design.On the bottom is the SuperSear-II that is the redesigned that I did.










I sent this new design as well as a couple of the new sears to Steve but he wasn’t impressed. I guess that was because it wasn’t his any longer. Anyhow, I decided to go ahead and manufacture it regardless of his thoughts and called them the SuperSear-II.

The new SuperSear-II’s sold well and never had any problems or customer complaints. It was just a few months later that Steve and I parted company and I passed half of the remaining inventory of the new SuperSear-II’s on to him at that time.


Now let’s fast forward about a year and a half.

Here it is Sept. 2007 and it now appears the Steve is in the process of making the SuperSear. And guess what? It’s not his design but the one that my machinist and I developed Not only is it the new design that my machinist put together that Steve was not impressed with but as you can see, he has also taken the pictures on my website showing the new sear in the trigger and it’s installation and makes it appear as it was his. Then, Steve added some script to it showing how it functions. And this is the guy that’s always screaming “plagiarize” and “stealing” from him. That's typical of Steve though.
So now you have an understanding of Steve's SuperSear and how through my efforts in changing a big part of the geometrical design evolved into the SuperSear-II and something that really works.
One thing about Steve Woodward (Steve-in-NC). He does a lot of research evidently and occasionally sees something that he thinks he can improve on. Usually it doesn't work it. But...even though he brought it up and it wasn't his and if someone else picks up on it and is successful in making it work, you stole it from him. Steve does not live in the real world. All he does is glean information or ideas from others and apply other information in an attempt to come up with something new.
Steve may be a mathematician but he is certainly not an inventor. He is a good "wanna be" inventor though and he is good at stealing other people's ideas and claiming them as his own.

Anyhow, bottom line is that I will reintroduce the SuperSear-II in the near future and it will be the SuperSear-II that I was marketing last year and not the one the Steve Woodward designed.

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