Really good experience with Woodcraft this week

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BHuij

BHuij

Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2025
Messages
309
Location
Utah
I have a Woodcraft store that's about 45 minutes away, and I shopped there quite a bit when I lived closer. These days I live 10 minutes from Craft Supplies USA, so it's always my first stop. When ordering online I tend to gravitate to PSI before anyone else. Anyway, point is I haven't bought anything from Woodcraft in quite a while.

The exception to that is when I tried out their really unique "Arete" fountain pen kit with a hooded nib, a few months ago. I ended up really loving it, and it looked discontinued, so I stocked up and bought like 5 of them while they were still available.

This week I was turning one and found that the tip of the nib was horribly bent, as if it had been dropped. Unusable. I'm guessing it happened in shipping, so probably not even really Woodcraft's fault. Either way, I reached out via email by filling out a form on their website to ask if I could buy a replacement nib, since the rest of the kit was fine.

Not 2 hours later, Bob from Woodcraft called me back. He confirmed they didn't have any Arete parts anymore, but proactively offered me a brand new pen kit of my choice for free as a replacement, no questions asked. It's in the mail now.

Top tier customer support. I'm thinking I ought to give Woodcraft a bit more of my business than I have been lately :D
 
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BHuij said:
... When ordering online I tend to gravitate to PSI before anyone else.
Click to expand...

Consider giving some of this business to ExoticBlanks! I used to order directly from PSI, but found several things....
  • Dawn and Ed are awesome people that know the business/craft!
  • EB is closer to us, the ship more quickly, and you don't wait as long.
  • Their pricing is at least as good as PSI.
  • You get quantity discounts across kits.
  • Peanut M&Ms (IYKYK)
  • They carry much of what PSI sells and MORE!
I only order from PSI now if it is something that EB doesn't stock.
 
Adding on to what @d_bondi said - I will not buy from PSI directly anymore, despite having purchased lots of things from them for a good long time. I used to pass their in-person store frequently where I always stopped and stocked up on kits and supplies I needed. Knew the staff there by their first names! But, buying in person apparently wasn't being tracked to you, versus when you are buying on line. One of the kits I bought there had bad instructions included in the package and I assembled it per the instructions and wrecked the kit. I called PSI Support to see what they would do and was told I was wrong, the bad instructions had been corrected, and I must have just assemble it wrong. I disagreed but the phone support person basically held to his statement that it was my fault. I told him I was unsatisfied with his answer and that I would have to think about buying from them directly anymore. He told me - with a pretty arrogant attitude that it was not a problem, as I hardly buy anything from them anyway. He wished me luck and hung up.

Guessing he didn't have access to the hundreds of dollars of receipts I had from their in-person store.......and I've held to my promise - not one purchase from them since. I'll go to Barry Gross, Dawn and Ed or other similar vendors before dealing with PSI again!

Kevin
 
I have had great CS from Woodcraft, Chattanooga, TN. Been there so many times, they call me by my first name...while clearing the counter for my purchases.
 
I have to agree with David and Kevin. Dawn and Ed are my first stop for everything. Their CS is absolutely unbeatable. Ryan and Patrick at Woodturningz are also very responsive.
 
@d_bondi I have ordered from Exotic Blanks several times before. They have an excellent selection and I've only ever had great experiences. Can't say I can think of a bad experience I've had with PSI either though. Many purchases over the last year or so since I dove back into the hobby, and so far everything has been great. But yeah I will still order from Exotic Blanks without reservation.

Back in the day I used to default to BearToothWoods. Ernie is in CO Springs which is close to me in Utah, so shipping was usually really fast. He's a nice guy too. I only ever had one bad experience - he had a kit he sold that needed an 8.02mm bit (letter O size), but his documentation had a typo and listed an 8.2mm bit. Even recommended an 8.2mm bit to buy alongside the kit and bushings. So I did. Obviously when I drilled my blank, I rendered it unusable for that pen kit. Once I figured out the issue I emailed him to let him know. Honest mistake, I suspect.

@speedybtx When I have a photo I think is worth sharing, I will usually put it on Flickr. If you want to see ones I've shot with the specific camera in my avatar, I have them in an album here. But truth be told I shoot a lot more 35mm and 6x6 than I do 4x5 lately. The convenience is hard to argue with :D
 
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