Business minded

[panchowood]

I live in Monterrey, Mexico and I know about this fantastic machine I've read a lot about it, i want to bring one to my city my idea is to make money with it. I'm a creative guy a brother will purchase the CW at Lowe's in Chicago three weeks from today and I will go to Laredo Tx. to pick it up in a Lowe's there. The question is. Can a person make a living out of this machine? I want to know. I also want to know is there a member from Mexico who has CW/CC in Monterey , some folks up in the states discourage me when I heard all those problems with the machine and many others do the opposite with all those post, a QC vs. Rock, etc. I don't have a lot of money to make a $2,400 mistake "NEED ADVICE" or should I wait until the new QC Comes with te machine
happy carving and the best to all of you

[scoobie_6]

well let me tell you about mine,i got my first one and it didn't work out of the box. sent it back,got another,still did not work out of the box,sent it back also,got another the flex cable cooked on it,carvewright told me to pay 75.00 for a new cable or bring it back to lowes for another so i sent it back. then waited and waited and no machine,lowes told me to call carvewright so i did,carvewright told me they could not sell me a machine and to go to lowes and get a refund.. all i wanted was a machine that worked wasn't asking for anything more. so now i am back to using my hand router............

it does a great job if you get one that works.. so all i can say is it is a crap shoot. 6 of one half dozen of another

[Walker Sky Ranch]

I have owned mine 20 days, it has only finished 2 projects. The rest it has either stopped working or it messed up the whole pattern. These where all patterns I bought from Carvewright, and I used straight flat boards that fit the machine. Made sure the alignment was perfect, the sensors read every inch of the board and all my patterns/boards where used on a sled.
I have called carvewright and they try and talk me out of a full refund and want to send me parts that are not broken on my machine. I get the idea they want me to go past the 30 day full refund period
I have to do some serious soul searching, as to whether I keep it or not. The frustration level is huge with this machine, I am tired of carving a 10 hour project for it to destroy it on the last cut. My finished project percentage is 20%.. so 8 things do not finish out of 10.. When it works it works great.. when is does not. it is frustration to say the least

[jaroot]

We've had our machine for about 2 or 3 months. It has broken a couple of times and I expect it will continue to have "maintenance" issues. We've devised a couple of work arounds for some of the issues such as the bit plate not extending, cover switch failing, etc.

It is a machine that needs TLC. But it can do some great stuff so we will continue to tinker and pat it on the back, what ever it takes to keep it going.

[CarverJerry]

I've had mine since last Sept. I have about 200 cut hours on it and have carved many projects. I keep it clean and lubed and I can say that my machine has done very well. I had one minor problem of a cable guard that came off, other than that she's running perfect other than my silly mistakes in drawing or misspelling words. I love my Rock Chuck also.

CarverJerry

[Kix]

I have a '65 VW Karmann Ghia. It is "Baja'd" with a lifted suspension, bigger tires, bus trannsmission, cut and turned front end, full race cage, and a host of other cool things done. Unfortunately, I didnt build it that way, and I really dont know how/ have the capability to maintain it. As a result, it doesnt run right now. I bought it for $2500 back in 2001 and havent driven it in 7 years or so now. Of course there was a cross country move and gettign married and kids and all of that. But the point is that there is a certain level of commitment you need to be prepared for, or face failure. Fortunately for you, the great folks here on the forum have run across most of the problems and they are discussed here and you can find solutions.

If I may make a few suggestions for you to smooth out the learning curve.

1. Get a dust collector system like Ringneckblue's from the very beginning. Many issues can be traced to dust in the workings of the machine, and the top mount dust collectors seem to work best. This will also involve a dust collector vac of some sort. Dont expect to rely on a shop vac as a long term solution. Make sure you ground the whole dust collecting system.

2. Make sure you understand how to search the forum. The search feature wont let you use words under a 3 or 4 character limit, so if you need to search words that small surround them with quotation marks like, "bit"

I could probably go on about all the other stuff you need to do, like sizing the real board 7 inches longer than the virtual board you are working on and all that, but I will leave that to someone else.

[Walker Sky Ranch]

I will trade you my machine for your Ghia!!

I have a '65 VW Karmann Ghia.