Axminster white, wheres everything else?

[Anonymous]

After a bit of a break from actual woodwork and leafing through the latest AXMINSTER CATALOGUE it's interesting to note - no Kity, little Sheppach the list goes on! Plenty of Axminster white though.

This range seems good value for money. Are the machines any good?

 

[johnelliott]

I presume the Axminster own label stuff is reasonably good, but I don't like the paucity of name brands in their catalogue. I'm sure they've given their stratagies a great deal of thought, but it seems to me that they are forcing customers to look elsewhere. At one time it would hardly have crossed my mind to use a different retailer, but not now

John

 

[Alf]

Are the machines any good?

I get the impression they're a bit of a Curate's Egg - good in parts. And of course that means you can't use the simple "brand X is good" rule of thumb, which is a PITA. Like John, I'm not totally convinced it's the right way to go, but I would hope they know more about their business than I do! :lol: Certainly I've been elsewhere on quite a few things since they did it, and once you get in that habit...

Cheers, Alf

 

[stuartpaul]

Have to admit to using Axminster an awful lot, - one of the benefits of living just down the road!!

My experience of their white stuff has generally been quite good. Two half inch routers, thicknesser and a table saw. Given good service and no problems. Some of the Perform stuff is also reasonably good for budget buys. I find that for my sort of usage (hobby) it tends to do a good job. Doubt if it would last as well in professional workshops but then they admit its not intended for that.

Having said that I now shop round far more widely than I used to and am more prepared to buy from other suppliers. They are also very beatable on price although they do seem to have more 'offers' now than they used to.

 

[Ham]

I certainly have changed my buying habits since Axminster went 'White'. Their service is still very good but the machinery side of the business is certainly lacking in too many of the names they used to provide. My only 'White' purchase went back within 3 days because the quality was dire.

Cheers, David

 

[Anonymous]

ouch!! which item was it, can you say?

 

[Ham]

It was their SDS drill/breaker - I'm afraid I could only recommend it as a door stop!

 

[beech1948]

Hi all,
Interesting one this.

I sort of recall that Woodcut went down this route with quite a few tools and machinery....I think they own branded P/Ts, table saws etc ...whilst still selling kity and scheppach.

Of course Woodcut went bust and disappeared. I wonder what lessons this has for Axminster.?

Alan

 

[Noel]

Hi Beech, think a contributing (or maybe the only reason) was that the guy (whose name escapes me) that ran Woodcut became very ill. I guess another thing to consider was that the Chinanese stuff of the day (late 90s) was a notch or two down the quality scale compared to current standards, altho we're talking lower end, anyway.

Rgds

Noel

 

[Dog]

It all depends on budget and of course the usage the power tools are going to be put through but I personally will never buy 'Axminster White' power tools again. Having started my 'addiction' to woodworking buying and trying to use budget tools within my budget at that time I had lots of chances to 'test' certain 'budget' tools and Axminster White was very disappointing especially their 1/2" router which eventually fell apart in my router table. I had a cordless drill which burnt out very quickly, the replacement wasn't much better with a very dodgy battery connection requiring use of duct tape to keep the battery inplace :roll:

I must admit I rarely shop with Axminster these days, I far prefer the excellent D&M Tools, who I discovered by being a member of this Forum plus the fact that Trend T3's are still £10.00 less than Axminster sells them for :wink:

As I say though, the above is just mho