Let down by Axminster Tools

[paulrbarnard]

Trust me if your wife has an upcoming birthday very fine dovetails will not be at the top of her wish list.

You don’t know my wife. If I made it and didn’t pay money for it she thinks it’s great. She is completely non materialistic. She asked for the fine dovetails too

 

[bp122]

Maybe change the title of this post to,

"I purchased the wrong tool after seeing a picture of it. Hold on whilst I throw my teddies out the pram. And make a big fuss over nothing"

on a forum that has hundreds of post describing axminster's excellent customer service.

Adidat

With all due respect, it is a bit harsh.

Axminster may be very good at their service, but just like everything and everyone else that is run by humans, they are prone to error. They are in the wrong here and I'm sure they'll sort it out. But when you need something quick and this happens, it is indeed a let down.

About two years ago when I bought my tiny table saw from them, I wanted a narrow clearance insert for it. They had it on their website with the right description and code, but the photo was of the one for the previous model.

True, they changed the picture after I let them know, but if someone just blindly trusted because they are awesome and ordered it for their older table saw in a hurry, they would have been disappointed!

 

[bp122]

You don’t know my wife. If I made it and didn’t pay money for it she thinks it’s great. She is completely non materialistic. She asked for the fine dovetails too

Good for you, Paul.
By the way, did she ask you to write that???

 

[paulrbarnard]

Well an excellent resolution. Axminster support have agreed the description is wrong and have provided a paid return slip and will fully refund me plus the postage I paid.
I have to say that is excellent customer service and I will certainly buy from them again without concern.

 

[billgiles]

Tools are there to be modified to meet your needs. Indeed tool steel is reasonably priced. Even cheaper old chisels from a flea market or car boot sale.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Tools are there to be modified to meet your needs. Indeed tool steel is reasonably priced. Even cheaper old chisels from a flea market or car boot sale.

Completely agree in principle and that’s what I have just done. I went with buying one first time as it was less that £20 which is insignificant compared to the amount of free time I have available. Unless all your time is free time modifying, making or indeed visiting flee markets on the off chance of a find is not necessarily the most effective approach.

Just for comparison here is what I needed to do. I have a number of odd chisels in a drawer and was able to find a suitable starting point. It was about ⅜ inch so needed a bit of grinding but not too much. So that started the time burning. I don’t have a grinder set up so I found out an old one acquired from my Dad a while back. It had no rest on it, so I had another rummage and found the adjustable rest I had when I lived in Canada 20 odd years ago. Next I had to fix the grinder to a board to stop it walking around the bench. Then I discovered that the rest was too high so I then found a four inch lump of oak and sawed a couple of chunks off to raise the grinder up. Now I don’t have a table saw or anything like that so out came a four point hand saw. Spacers made, the grinder and rest were mounted. I was then about an hour and a half in to the process and still not put the chisel to the grinder.
Grinding down to the required width and then bevelling took best part of 30 minutes as I needed to keep the chisel nice and cool. That was when I discovered the back of the chisel had a very deep rust hole near the tip. So back to the grinder and remove enough of the tip to remove the hole. I then hit the stones to flatten the back. There was quite a bit of pitting so I had to start at 120 and work my way up from there using the doubling grit approach.
All in probably three and a half hours. That puts my hourly rate equivalent at about £7 an hour.

 

[Blister]

If you still need the chisel you could try Classic hand tools

 

[Lonsdale73]

I placed an order with Axi yesterday. Almost immediately I received a confirmation and just as immediately noticed it was showing my old address. I phoned straight away and in the short time it took to get through to someone in Customer Service, I'd received another email confirming my order had already been despatched. The person I spoke to said not to worry, she would contact the courier and have it redirected. She also apologised, saying that it would mean I wouldn't receive it today; I wasn't expecting it till Tuesday. First thing this morning I received another email, this time confirming it had been redirected and that it will be with me on Monday. No complaints from me.