this posting isn't a personal gripe or attack against woodmizer,more of an airing of problems that have been on going regarding woodmizer products.
the company problems started when they became employee owned.wood mizer was founded on sound business practices,quality at a fair price. iv'e been fairly quite about the problems we have been having with w.m products and parts but,it's now reached a point i can no longer sit by and not warn others of the problems we and other bigger producers have been dealing with.
in calendar year 2015 we spent close to $150,000 on wood mizer equipment. the first day we fired up the edger the problems started,3 days later and talking to over 10 people at w.m we were no closer to having any answers than the first day. 2 weeks went by with no resolve,it was only after we demanded a new edger did we start getting answers. the first 3 months the edger was down for a total of 1 1/2 months. pretty sad right? finally when the blade collar hubs were completly worn out because of poor manufacturing.w.m sent us new parts(get this from poland) we sat for 13 days waiting for parts,they finally show up ....wrong parts
so we wait again. new parts last 2 weeks.dead in the water.we demand a new edger! finally they agree to replace the junk one.
the new edger shows up we needed to take the lasers off the old one and wire the new one ,we were instructed to just follow how the old one was wired.no problems well ,not really put the power to it and fried something. there had been revisions done but we were not told anyway found the small electronic part called w.m they have to get the part from poland .$12 part are you kidding me ? we bought one on amazon for $11 .
we finally get the new edger fired up,it won't hold size or repeat size. so ,losing more production the bore on the clampable hub was to big,i cut a pop can for a shim which was about .030" thick.hum? works now
lets talk about the mill
other than constaly replacing bearings,electrical componets,computer parts and other parts that shouldn't need replacing in 100hrs.use i found computer glitches that w.m set upgrades for,get this it fixed that problem but created more in the meantime. the lube pump just failed earlier this week.w.m said it must have froze.no,our shop is heated to 55 deg. constant. nice try guys
now we will move to our sharpener, we sharpened 8 blades,the cbn wheel is wore out ,the grinding compound has worn off.$200 wheel ? after talking with friends the sharpener wasn't even set from the factory correctly.
i know w.m has gotten tired of hearing from us cuz,now they won't even return calls. i have talked with the ceo and the number 2 in control numerous times expressing our frustrations about sub par parts only to get lip service
saw blades well that's another issue they can't get a handle of. blades breaking in the welds, new blades that need to be rolled flat before using
if w.m. spent time and money fixing problems instead of just throwing parts at the problem ,they might actually make headway.
i'm only writing this the shed light on a very serious problem ,if enough people start voicing their problems maybe w.m. will make changes if not atleast this might help people make desicions based on less than stellar feedback. i could keep going but, i'll stop for now
thanks for taking the time to read our struggles with a manufacture