Infinity Cutting Tools customer service

[Dan Hahr]

I've been dealing with Infinity Cutting Tools customer service since October 2021 and was wondering if my experience is the norm or if I am one of the unlucky few that has fallen through the cracks.

In October, I contacted Infinity customer service regarding a set of carbide tipped knives i purchased for the Dewalt 735 planer. I had initially thought that the knives were necessary as I was planning a large project in hickory. It turned out that I ended up using walnut, but I still installed the carbide tipped knives. They planed well without chipping the edges and I spent several days rough planing rough cut walnut with my 15" planer and letting them acclimate before finish planing them. When I was finally ready to glue up some panels, I noticed that the edges were not lined up and that the board faces were not parallel. I inspected the boards and the knives and found out that one side of the blades were ground about .030" more in the last three inches. Any board that went through the planer on that side was not parallel.

I ended up pulling those knives and installing a new set of Infinity HHS knives for the Dewalt 735 planer. These also had a slight deviation at the ends but were much closer to straight. They were about .004" off. I contacted Infinity customer service though their website and email and received no response. After a couple months, I called up and spoke to one of their reps and he told me that they responded to my email and requested additional photos. I never received that email and checked my Junk and Spam folders with no luck.

Anyway, I sent them the additional photos with the knives lined up against a straight edge as they requested. I still did not receive a response. I called again and spoke to another person and they assured me that they would make sure that the techs would see my email and respond. That was on December 13. I have yet to hear anything from the company.

I was under the impression that Infinity was one of the leading blade/knife makers available to us right now. Their slogan, "Only Our Service Exceeds Our Quality," seems that they at least want to be known for quality products and service. I spent $250 on these knives because I believed in their company, but these knives are unusable and not acceptable.

Has anyone else had such an experience with this company and if so, were you able to resolve the problem? Thanks for your input as I try to figure out how to deal with this.

Thanks, Dan

[Pete Staehling]

It has been a while since I have needed their customer service, but it was top notch when I did. I can't say whether it has recently gotten worse.

[Zachary Hoyt]

My only interaction with them was on a top bearing guided bowl and tray router bit. The bearing fell apart after less than an hour's use, and the balls fell into the cavity I was routing and damaged the bit. They initially offered to only replace the bearing, but when I pointed out that the bearing had, in failing, damaged the router bit beyond repair they agreed to send a whole new bit assembly, which worked fine. This was many years ago, maybe 10 at a guess.

[michael langman]

I bought a set of straight edges from them quite a few years ago. One of the straight edges was chipped very badly, probably like that from the factory.

I returned them after contacting customer service with pictures and they sent me new ones. The seemed reasonable and were nice about the whole incident.

[Danny Nevala]

I had a problem where a package they shipped me got lost in transit. The customer service was absolutely no help at all. Too bad, so sad, was the gist of their response. I no longer do business with them.

[Bob Betker]

Dan: Sorry to hear about your troubles. The couple of times I have had to email them about something they were pretty prompt in replying. Maybe not the next day but usually within 2 or 3 business days. Lots of places are short-handed due to the pandemic that might be contributing to the delay. Hope you get it resolved.

[Charles Lent]

Ask to speak to David, the President of Infinity. Explain your problem and offer to send him copies of the pictures and the history of your contacts with his CS. I think you will get favorable results. In my dealings with Infinity's CS over the last 15 years I've had a few problems with some of his employees. I think David will resolve your problem.

Charley

[Warren Lake]

show him you posted here, it might change how you are served. Ive had some crappy service last while, If you are busy working and need answers then you need answers not 48 hour away.

I really thank people that give good service and let them know there are too many not giving good service and this is before the virus thing as well. In the past I always got a better level of service from the US than up here. No idea why. One guy years back at Senco was awesome. Last time I asked a question at Onsrud the guys service was excellent fast and detailed so thanked him for that. Do agree that service is messed up last while cause the world is still upside down.

[Andrew Hughes]

I believe the lesson here is always check planer/jointer knives before installing them.
The only place I’ve bought knives ready to go is from American National knife.
Everthing has gotten real weird.
Good Luck

[Warren Lake]

If things were as they should be they should be checking before they send to us would make sense. Ive only ever sent knives back once and they were .015 out of straight. I have the 20" dimar knives that were 25" and I cut them down then found one is thinner than the others then putting a straight edge on the back they were not straight. They look like they were in a machine one time from new.

When there is time ill take the ones i cut down to Dimar see what their story is. Even if from an auction almost brand new what Mel said about same bar stock, they proved him right three from one bar and one from another, then measuring the back they were not straight.

Andrew does everyone do a flat grind or do any of them do a hollow grind on jointer planer knives. Im sure when I started my knives were hollow ground then at some point seemed everyone did a flat grind. I liked the hollow grind as honing them first rested on two points.

[David Venditto]

Hi Dan,

Sorry to hear you're having difficulty getting a reply from us. I discussed this in detail with my customer service team this morning to see what is going on. We've got a ticketing system that keeps track of all inbound emails and it's our policy to reply within a business day or two (but usually sooner) to each request. We did reply to each open ticket in a timely manner but did not receive any further news from you so those tickets were closed. Your most recently opened ticket (1/11/22 @ 10:11am) was responded to on 1/11/22 @ 10:56am. That ticket shows a status of waiting for customer reply. Did you receive our responses via email? If not, please check your spam or junk folders. Sometimes emails get routed to those folders and become lost. We stand behind all of our products with a lifetime quality guarantee. In this case we would have asked for pics and then just simply replaced the knives. We hold very tight tolerances with our specialty planer knives but it is possible a set slipped out not to our standard. Also please note that we have a customer service team standing by to answer calls M-F from 8:30am to 5:00pm EST. We look forward to hearing from you so we can get this issue taken care of ASAP. Thanks so much for reaching out and for your support.

David Venditto
President and Founder
Infinity Tools

[Andrew Hughes]

Andrew does everyone do a flat grind or do any of them do a hollow grind on jointer planer knives. Im sure when I started my knives were hollow ground then at some point seemed everyone did a flat grind. I liked the hollow grind as honing them first rested on two points.

I only see flat grind everything seems to be at 45 the Amanda knives that I’ve bought just as recently as last year. They needs to be sharped be use.
I also like a hollow grind I have a Tormek with black stone I put 42 degrees grind on my knives. I also stone them several times before changing them out.
American national knives have the best m2 hhs I’ve seen. Beautiful grind on the both sides ready for work. I have two sets all set at 42.
I used to have a 735 planer with infinity’s carbide tipped knives and they were perfect and worked great.
i attribute the decline in amateur woodworking needs for knives due to the insert head. I can see it difficult to get t1 stock.
The industrial side is plenty if you can run 5/32 or 1/4 thick knives there’s some good choices.
Good Luck

[Frederick Skelly]

Hi Dan,

Sorry to hear you're having difficulty getting a reply from us. I discussed this in detail with my customer service team this morning to see what is going on. We've got a ticketing system that keeps track of all inbound emails and it's our policy to reply within a business day or two (but usually sooner) to each request. We did reply to each open ticket in a timely manner but did not receive any further news from you so those tickets were closed. Your most recently opened ticket (1/11/22 @ 10:11am) was responded to on 1/11/22 @ 10:56am. That ticket shows a status of waiting for customer reply. Did you receive our responses via email? If not, please check your spam or junk folders. Sometimes emails get routed to those folders and become lost. We stand behind all of our products with a lifetime quality guarantee. In this case we would have asked for pics and then just simply replaced the knives. We hold very tight tolerances with our specialty planer knives but it is possible a set slipped out not to our standard. Also please note that we have a customer service team standing by to answer calls M-F from 8:30am to 5:00pm EST. We look forward to hearing from you so we can get this issue taken care of ASAP. Thanks so much for reaching out and for your support.

David Venditto
President and Founder
Infinity Tools

It is very good news to see the company President engaging here to address a Customer's need!

[Warren Lake]

there is one good side of the internet at work

[Warren Lake]

Andrew thanks for your info there. Seems we are about the same on that stuff. I wish all the steel was engraved in some way with the type. I always remember taking bar stock to a molding company for him to make me some knives and him pausing and saying this is good steel. Most of their machines were all high speed steel 3 generation family business. He knew just looking at the grain and years of experience I guess.