I’d like to order one.” So I did and they wanted full payment up front of $1,899 + tax ($2,064 – high for a hobby toy – ow well, my wife suggested it for my birthday present in March). I said, “yeah right, they are backordered all over the country. When he got involved and typed the right stuff into the cash register computer, it said they were expecting one or more on January 7th (4 days later). He said he had seen one in a Maryland Sears store himself and it looked awesome but had not seen it in operation. After much confusion with the cash register dude, an older gentleman was called who understood what I wanted. I did that with her and went to the local Sears store the same day (January 3rd). Carve Wright would not charge sales tax but would charge shipping. She suggested I place an order with both (no credit card required with Carve Wright) and see which comes in first. Even though Sears has priority (which of course it should as their mass marketer) she advised that the wait list might be long. The woman I spoke with at Carve Wright was delightful and told me that Sears has priority on many new machines being built but that Carve Wright would also have an allotment. I called Carve Wright on January 3rd after seeing the CompuCarve ad during a Bowl Game and doing some research here on the net and seeing that it was out of stock on. the skill of being able to do it one’s self. Something is missing….hmmm, oh, iknow! it ’s the human factor. it would be like riding in a computerized car or on a motorcycle that you didn’t have to drive. I know what Frank is saying about it not being woodworking…the art and skill is gone out of it. I think i’ll stick with my shop tools….but it might be fun to play with. if you send it out to be serviced you are out of operation….there goes all your tools. i wonder how strong it is…how long it lasts before servicing. and i can’t imagine using a router to plane a board to thickness or rip a board or many basic woodworking operations.

I can’t imagine using it for production….like a big dot matrix printer…time consuming. too much tearing, though it’s micro tearing…it shows as a fuzzy texture, and hard to do fine detail.

I know there have been duplicator machines for carving out there before…and routers don’t do a very clean job. would like to talk with someone who has one of these machines. Now, maybe that was in the drawings, that the templates chosen don’t have much detail in them or the machine isn’t capable of doing fine detail. but several things are not clear to me: the detailing of the carvings were not as in depth, precise as i would like.

Well, i saw the video at Carve Wright and what i’m most impressed with is the translation of computer drawings to material.

Carvewright vs compucarve