Very dissapointed with purchase
I paid another enjoyable visit to Carba-Tec recently with Mrs. Wood. One of the items on my shopping list had also been on my previous list; a stick of Lee Valley's green honing compound, but seemingly they sell out of them virtually as soon as they come in. I know, there are cheaper, more readily available alternatives, but I have fallen victim to the hype surrounding this product and I just wanted to try it. So, with the bug well and truly under my skin, I went on-line and ordered a stick of the compound from a Western Australian store (not Carba-Tec). Don't ask me why, but I added a Milescraft Offset Base for my router to the order while I was at it.
A few days later, I received a courtesy call from a pleasant individual who advised me the compound was out of stock and wouldn't be coming in again until mid December. I opted to have the router base sent on and keep the compound on back order.
The router base instructions said to remove the original base and use the original (Makita) screws to attach the off-set base. This presented Problem Number One. Despite the recesses in the off-set base, the original screws would only engage by roughly one to two threads and I wasn't prepared to chance stripping the threads in my router. Mrs. Wood subsequently spent a lot of time running round to find longer screws for me and I eventually mounted the off-set base on the router.
I stood the router up on its base and directly encountered Problem Number Two. The base wasn't flat and the router rocked all over the place! I didn't try the new base out in earnest, but it was quite apparent that if I had tried to use it, the degree of instability would, at least, have caused the router bit to create inaccurate cuts, but could conceivably have caused a dig-in with imaginable consequences.
On closer inspection, the plastic base seemed to have been poorly moulded. Although seemingly injection moulded, the bottom surface was rippled as if it suffered inconsistent cooling or curing issues. The base cost $18.75, but still, it should be fit for purpose no matter what the price.
I emailed the shop, explained the problems and asked for a refund. Two days later, at about 6:45pm, I received a phone call from the shop (remember, they're in WA) from a rather aggressive individual who was evidently prepared for battle from the off; "Is that Mr. Wood, is it?"
"Here we go" I thought to myself, not even knowing who the caller was.
Mr. Irate of WA didn't begin with apologies or commiserations for my dissatisfaction with the product, instead he immediately embarked on a hostile and condescending tirade, explaining that he had looked at three of the bases and noted "… maybe half a mil of movement, but nothing like enough to make it inaccurate". I countered that if the three bases he looked at had, at least, some inaccuracies, was it not plausible that the one I received could be as bad as I described? Mr. Irate was incensed at my description of the off-set base and said "I don't believe you!' and just kept saying "I don't believe you!"
Once Mr. Irate of WA had crossed that barrier and established I was a liar, it was all down hill. He went on; "Did it not occur to you to flatten the base on a sheet of sandpaper?" Well this raised two issues, firstly, if I had even felt remotely inclined to flatten the base, how should I have gone about it to maintain the perpendicularity of the router to ensure accurate cuts? Secondly, this was a brand new product – why should I have to start in with sandpaper and elbow grease (which, sadly, I find in very short supply these days) to correct manufacturing faults? Mr. Irate of WA clearly anticipated my train of thought, but nonetheless, he came out with "If you buy a new Stanley plane, you have to flatten the sole of it!"
Somewhere in the depths of my mind I could hear Vicky Pollard, "Ohhhhh myyyyy God! I can't believe you just said that!"
"That's absolute BS!" I retorted. "You don't need a flattened plane to create fine woodwork!"
Anyway, what had a Stanley plane got to do with this router base?
Mr. Irate of WA was absolutely ropeable that I should be complaining about a $20 router base in the first instance, but after further derision, suggested I return the base and if he found it to be unusable, he would refund the purchase price. I said I wasn't going to return it in the unlikely event (given his dismissal of the whole concept of wobbly router bases) he would deem it unsuitable only to be refunded the purchase price. It was a no-brainer, the postage cost more than the router base!
After more deliberation, he agreed to "… meet me half way" and refund the outbound postage - but not the return postage. Why should I be penalised even one cent for the shonky goods he sent me? I, or should I say, Mrs. Wood, had already invested considerable time and not a little money in tracking down suitable replacement screws for the base.
However, before further negotiations could continue, he for some reason called me a liar again. That had been his mindset before he even lifted the phone to call me and his attitude wasn't amenable to favourable customer relations or resolving the issue. Mr. Irate of WA was talking over me and matters were getting nowhere, so I ended the call.
That's the second unfavourable dealing I've had with this WA company in the past couple of years and will be the last. I don't even expect I'll see the honing compound come mid December.
