CarveWright Wood Carving Machine Review
Saturday October 6, 2007
The CarveWright Wood Carving machine is a breakthrough in computer-controlled woodworking tools. The unit is basically a counter-top computer numerical control (CNC) machine, designed for carving designs in woodworking projects. The CarveWright includes easy-to-use design software, a memory card onto which your designs are loaded, and the carving machine, that carves the design as found on the memory card.
This wood carving machine was a lot of fun to work with, and I could find literally thousands of uses for this tool, particularly for small commercial applications. A design can be drawn once and then duplicated on as many pieces of stock as necessary. The options are truly endless.
While we did encounter a couple of software hiccups, we found the unit to be very well-built and easy to use. Learn the advantages and disadvantages in our CarveWright Wood Carving Machine Review.
(c) 2007 Chris Baylor licensed to About.com, Inc.
Comments
I returned 2 of these to Sears after much headache. It is a wonderfull concept and the people who have them and dont have problems are very happy and the people who do have problems are just as many. LHR who makes the Carvewright and the compucarve had many manufacturing troubles in China as well as backlogs for parts.
I do look forward to the day of owning one again though when the bugs are worked out.
I have had my machine since Feb.07. I have nothing but good to say about my experience with the machine and the customer support provided by the manufacturer. While some have had their difficulties with the machine, the majority of owners, I believe, are more that satisfied. I launched my own website to promote the FREE sharing of patterns for the CarveWright™ and CompuCarve™ machine…to promote a great machine, and a great company! (You will not find many companies that offer this level of customer service) I am not, nor is my website affiliated, associated or endorsed by LHR Technologies…but I, as a satisfied owner of one of these great machines do endorse the machine as well as the company who makes it!
Tommy
CompuCarveWright.com
I really gave hope for this machine, even after exchanging 3 machines. I continued to have the same issues. I have owned this machine six months and have sent it in for repair about 5 times. This time during shipping it was broke beyond repair.
This open my eyes, if the shipper will not accept the claim. My machine will not be covered under warranty. The warranty is 1 year from Sears and 200 hours from LHR. NO EXTENDED WARRANTY OFFERED!
LHR has great customer service in warranty. But out of warranty, you and I will pay for a 80 lb machine shipping to Texas. Then the hourly rate for repair and parts. I have been told so much incorrect information from LHR ( management and up). I will not tell you what I heard the rate is. Whatever it is imagine sending the unit in for repair for the same issues. And you will, you will spend more for repair then buying a new machine.
Bottom line this is an expensive disposable toy!
Rick
As I mentioned in the first post back in October I looked forward to the day I could buy another machine and after checking back in the carvewright forum I see that a year after returning my last machine they are still addressing the same problems. This machine can be bought cheaper now that it is also being distributed through machinerydistributers.com but I would recommend anyone interested in buying one to get it from Sears where at least you can return it for a full refund in the first 90 days. My 2 cents says that I am going to try and buy a shopbot instead.
We did a little research on the reviews that can be found online on various websites, such as this one.
The reviews were classified as follows: Positive, Negative and Mixed (reviews that were very much in favor of the machine but thought that some issues needed resolving, typically a three out of five star rating)
THE RESULTS
Artisthideout.com resulted in 4 Positive, 7 Negative and 4 mixed Reviews.
Amazon.com resulted in 8 Positive, 7 Negative and no Mixed Reveiws.
Toolmonger.com resulted in 7 Positive, and 4 Negative and 2 Mixed Reviews
Sears.com resulted in 50 Positive, 35 Negative and 7 Mixed Reviews.
Total we have 68 Positive Reviews, 53 Negative Reviews and 15 Mixed Reviews.
How do these weigh against the total number of Carvewrights sold?
Well picture this: This company has sold over 14,000 Compucarve/Carvewrights to date. That means the negative reviews represent less than 5 one thousandths percent of the total sold.
That is .005 percent.
Conclusion
The feedback on the internet is not representative of the ratio of user experience whatsoever simply because there are simply not enough reviews.
I have a Carvewright machine. It has never worked correctly. I waited past my 30 days to return it, no refund and they want to charge me to fix it. I think it is junk, I wouldn’t recommend anyone wasting their money. I found the company difficult to deal w/ too. They NEVER respond to your emails.
Margaret(5) your math is faulty. The negative reviews represent 0.38% of all sales. However, what about all of the potential negative reviewers who have never posted a comment? The real percentage of negative reviews may be much higher. According to your own data 39% of all reviews are negative; rather worrying. As someone who was looking to buy a Carvewright I find your bias quite obvious.
As a former employee of LHR technologies, the producer of the carvewright machine, I feel that I can say this with full confidence: DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR YOUR MONEY!! I have seen first-hand the way these people do business and you will be extremely disappointed! You’ll spend more time and money trying to get this machine to work properly than you will carving. Sure it works out for some people but for most it is merely a time bomb. But its not all bad! For instance it can be a very educational experience. You’ll learn new and exciting terms and phrases such as but not limited to: Z-axis stall, y-axis stall, x-axis stall, clear board sensor, edge detection failure, check board for problems, stuck compression roller, and of course, please close cover. So please please please heed my warning and avoid this machine at all costs!!
After 5 months of attempting to get this unit to work, I’ve given up. The company is a joke as far as customer service goes. All you get is the run around and excusses about their machine. And what worse is when you have a problem they refuse to allow you to talk to anyone with any authority, you just get a NO when you ask to talk to someone about your problems who can help. I’m out over $2300 and have an expenive paper weight. Don’t ever buy one of these units unless you just want to spend hours on the phone with people wo don’t care about your problems.
CJH, how did you come up with that figure (0.38 percent)? The quotient of 53/14000 is 0.00378, which is less than 1 percent. But unless all owners submitted a positive/negative comment, any number is rather meaningless.
David, you answered your own question. The decimal figure 0.00378 IS 0.38%, rounded, or more precisely, 0.378%. Simple arithmetic. Yes, it’s less than one percent, but NOT .005% as Margaret suggested.
As an example, if you had 5% of a dollar you’d have $0.05, or 5 cents. Margaret and David would have us believe we had five dollars??
It would be wise to avoid this machine. I had great hopes and I dealt with it as long as I could until selling the machine along with all of the peripherals to someone who already owned one. It takes a lot of time and patience to ensure this debacle will work and I wasn’t about to dump it on someone who wasn’t familiar with it’s many shortcomings.
I urge everyone to wait until a few years from now when (hopefully) it has been been fully developed and all of the mechanical and software bugs have been eliminated.
BOTTOM LINE: Buy something else with your $2,000.
I have had the same problems with my QC since I owned the machine, it viberated so bad the first time it broke the lower right bearing on the Z-truck and the bit and was replaced under warrenty, it did not solve my problems, have bought new QC’s and same problem, was told, thru email from Michelle Cantu, hardware supervisor says I am not seating the bit properly, as most any one knows with ballock type fittings they will not seat and lock if not properly aligned, just purchased new QC and waiting for arrival to see if this solves my problem. This will be the 4th QC I have tried. I am not happy at all with personnel support fron the supervisors. Will send letter to company founder, Chistopher Lovchik, if can not get any satisfaction this time.
DO NOT BUY A CARVEWRIGHT MACHINE – The axis was loose in the machine when we bought it. Drove from San Antonio to Houston to obtain service during the 200 hour warranty period. They had so many machines in for repair they could not work on it at that time. Returned one week later to pick up – we were assured it was totally repaired and in like new condition. It malfunctioned on the first project after returning home. They seem to be trying to find every excuse to make it my fault even though the unit still has only 70 hours of use. They will not respond to e-mail and telephone calls will not be accepted by anyone who has authority to resolve this issue. We have been informed by CarveWright that it is their written policy that customers are not allowed to speak with anyone over the repair supervisor status. 01/19/09. Resolution – unsolved at this time.
This machine and the company is a farce. I showed the rep. what I wanted to do with this machine and she said that is nothing for this machine. Ihave tried to get this thing to work for 3 mos. with no success. LHR will not return your e-mails or your calls. I have been hung up on 2 times from their people. When you do get to talk to a tech they are very courteous and helpful but I still have not cut one piece of wood yet. My advice is DON’T BUY IT!
The Compucarve is a great Machine. When it is working wright. and you can make some very nice things with it. But when it’s not working properly its a nightmare, I made some nice pieces with it in the short time that I had it.After it broke it stayed in the shop more than I had it. I finnally had to have sears refund my money under the service agreement.
I love the carve wright in fact I want
buy 2 more i love how it looks when its done
IT’S AWSOME I got this one jan 07 and
can’t say nothing bad about it
I think what Margaret says is correct. I’ve had my CarveWright for 2 months now and haven’t run into a single issue other than my own computer illiteracy with the software. Luckily LHR sent out a DVD that did a good job of explaining things – I watched it several times but I am sure most of you wouldn’t be nearly as slow with it.
It sounds like there are a good amount of people who were burned either as early adopters or a rare experience. Either way LHR has been friendly and patient the two times I’ve had to call their office and the user forum they have set up on their website is a great place to chit chat with other woodworkers.
the only thing bad that I can say about it is that I bought a bit set and haven’t been able to figure out what I can make with all of them