Router Bit Quality

24525 Views 29 Replies 15 Participants Last post by harrywc, Sep 22, 2010

pmspirito

Discussion Starter · Nov 15, 2004

There are a lot of companies selling router bits. Are there a lot of companies also manufacturing these bits or are two or three factories making them all.

I have been buying bits from Grizzly. The price is right and they work well for me, but I am new to the world of routers. Is a fifty dollar bit really better than a eighteen dollar bit?

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Sgt Beavis

· #15 · Dec 22, 2004

I purchased a set of 35 bits from Bad Dog Tools http://www.baddogtools.com while I was at the Woodworking show in Arlington last week. They had a very impressive demonstration. The rep put several nails in a peice of pine and ran it through a router table. There were no chips in the bits.

This was my first big set of bits and it cost me $250 bucks. They said that the bits cost $350 buckso on their website, but as you will notice, their website doesn't appear to have router bits anywhere.

Well, they told us at the show that they didn't have the bits on hand, so they would give us a smaller set of bits for free if we allowed them to send the bits to us in the mail. I went ahead and did so and crossed my fingers.

Well, today I got them in the mail. I was looking forward to trying them out this weekend. I wasn't planning on testing them against any nails, but it didn't look like I needed to. So far I've already found that two of the bits are chipped on the carbide tips. I haven't even finished going through them all yet. I guess now I get to test their "guarantee"

I'll take some pics and post them up later. I'll include a full review.

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Sgt Beavis

· #17 · Dec 27, 2004

Bob N said:
Did you look under "Rover Bits" on their web site? The router bits seem to be displayed there.

I hope you can get the chipped bits replaced.

Bob N

Yea, I looked there. Rover Bits are not their Router bit product. I couldn't find the bits listed there.

Anyways, I just got back home from my Christmas vacation. I will call them tomorrow and hopefully get quick replacements. Still, I am disappointed that the bits came to me chipped, even though they are supposed to be brand new. It makes their quality suspect.

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Sgt Beavis

· #18 · Dec 31, 2004

Update:

I called BadDog tools and spoke to a nice lady there. I very politely explained my situation to her. I informed her how disappointed I was to see chipped carbides and shotty build.

I got what I would term as great service over the phone. She stated that an entirely new set of bits would be shipped out on Monday. She promised that she would personally inspect each bit before shipping.

Now comes the real challenge, do the replacement bits fit the bill? When I get the replacements, I will take pictures and post a full review.

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Sgt Beavis

· #22 · Jan 15, 2005

Well, on Wednesday, BadDog tools made good and sent me an entirely new set of router bits. However, some of those were chipped as well.

I went ahead and peiced together a good set and today I'm sending the bad set back to them.

So I would rate BadDog's customer service pretty darn good but I would be wary of the router bits. I'll be putting them through their paces later today. Hopefully I shouldn't have any problems.

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