Before you return your unit READ THIS -=<:-0=]|==<
I was lucky, I bought an open box Compucarve that was missing parts and didn’t power up!! Dead, Dead, Dead… There were a couple reasons for that, first, it’s almost impossible to get a new unit, second, I saved a few bucks. If you are fortunate enough to get a new unit from Sears, consider yourself lucky.
This is amazing cutting edge technology (no pun intended). This is not a wood working machine that’s been refined over the last couple hundred years. That is the reality, plain and simple. Your trusty old “reliable” table saw’s spinning blade was first invented in 1777 and the power (water powered, mind you) circle saw was invented by a woman in 1813. For some reason, I hardly think the early ones were trouble free. The first electric ones even less so… Now fast forward to the here and now, I paid over $2000 for my first laser printer. The Carvewright is far more interesting. Think about the power you have in that little box. It boggles the mind! Even the most creative and the most skilled folks in this forum have only begun to tap what it is capable of doing. My laser printer could produce piles of paper at a then blazing 6 pages per minute…. We can now turn our imagination into real things, in wood and plastic.
That being said, a company going through the pain of explosive growth, like they are, has a few decisions to make. You can tell a lot about a company and its leadership by how they make decisions under fire, it reflects their true character. Any company can make good decisions when things are going well or at least decisions that seem good. But when the chips are down and there is simply too much to do and too many demands on the leadership, it’s easy for a company that is just in it for a quick buck to make bad decisions that destroy them in the long run. That is not the case here.
I bought an open box unit, I’m a second owner. They could tell me to take a hike. Too bad, so sorry, we are not going to support that. They could even say, ”Sorry, we have too many other customers to take care of you right now.” But, they did not! They responded like a company with Honor and Integrity, they stood by their machine, and they are going to honor the warranty-- even though someone owned it before me.
This is the decision you would expect from a good company, the kind you WANT to do business with.
The kind that treats their customers with honor and respect. (As a side note, I also called to order carving bits. When I mentioned that my Compucarve came without them the very nice lady on the phone was aghast and ready to ship them to me for free. I had to tell her three times before I finally convinced her that I purchased the unit with the full knowledge that those bits were missing and wanted to pay for them!!!!)
They don’t have enough technical support folks for everyone who calls to get a person on the phone right now…. But they can and do call you back (even though the tech guy can be a pain sometimes. They have been honest and open about weaknesses in design and manufacture, and I’ve seen people throw that right back at them. As if we would prefer they deny any issues exist at all? This company is allowing us to be right there with them, taking part in the birth of a new age in wood working, it’s a privilege for us to be here, now. If it was a big multinational mega corp bringing this product into existence, you would have nothing like this. You would be able to get right through to support, and they would read you the standard answer right off the script. We are interacting with real people who share our passion. Who see and hear your input.
So, you might be having problems, maybe you want to give up and maybe you want to return the machine because you are going through some growing pains with the folks who made these machines. But give it some thought. When you saw that video or demo or the box didn’t you think for a second that is amazing stuff? Didn’t you realize why? Had you ever seen something like this before…. Of course you have. Have you seen it for $2000? No way. Seen it at Sears, accessible to the masses? No way. It’s new. It’s a shift in technology. It’s what some marketing folks would call disruptive innovation. It’s a convergence of digital technology and computerized control for a hobby industry that has never had tools like this before. You bought it because it was cool. Because you dreamed of having a machine like this since you watched Star Trek as a kid.
From my opinion, LHR, the Carvewright guys, are a top notch company. You might have a few problems today-- partly because it’s new and you need to learn how to use it, partly because it’s new and not perfectly refined. But this is exactly the forum for us to bring the suggestions to LHR. It’s a place to make a positive difference, a place where we can contribute our ideas and support each other in solving problems- suggesting changes. Here, we can all participate in developing and shaping a future you can only imagine now. Think of where this is going to lead, imagine the tools we will have 10 years from now. Throw in any old log and out will come beautiful carved art far beyond what is even possible today. Imagine someday you will have instant in-home fabrication. Download the specs and blueprints for an entire furniture piece and feed in the raw material and all the pieces are machined right before your very eyes….
I’m sticking it out, no matter what. Of course I expect to be frustrated. I expect I’m even going to want to cuss a bit. I might even give up in exasperation once or twice and decide to have a few beers instead of carving wood. But I am certain that I am part of something good, and it’s something I want to take part in so I can tell my great-grand children I remember back in the day when…..
Cheers!
Bill (Number Eight)
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