AusPost Shopmate - my experience

[Dengue]

I purchased three HSS thicknesser blades from Infinity Tools in the US for my Delta 735 thicknesser. The genuine ones did not last more than 10m of old fishtail oak 200mm wide, and no pass deeper than 1mm. Apparently this quick wear is not uncommon, although FenceFurniture seems to have had a very good run with his blades.

The Infinity blades were supposedly much harder and thicker than the Delta replacements, and were worth $80 US, which comes to $100 AU these days. Retail price of the genuine replacements is $112 AU here in Oz.

Infinity also have carbide tipped blades for $250 a set

Infinity quoted $47 US to ship them, so I decided to have a go with Australia Posts Shopmate. Costs nothing to sign up. They charge a fixed rate of $25 per parcel, plus $6 for every additional 500g. Found that they charged me for a 1.5kg parcel for these three little blades, making a total of $45 AU shipping including $2.50 insurance, which could only take 2 weeks to get here. Outstanding delivery time! Be interesting to see how long it actually takes.

I had to pay Infinity Tools $12 US to ship it to the Aust Post depot in the US. So all up, this little parcel of the value of $100 AU actually cost $60 AU to ship via Shopmate, compared to $58 AU for Infinity to ship.

Bugger all difference really, but I suspect Shopmate possibly ripped me off with the size of the parcel. Will weigh on arrival, but that is only likely to reduce the total cost by about $6.

The package was received at the US depot from Infinity on 1st January , and I got an email today ( 3rd January) saying they had received my payment and the parcel had been shipped by standard air freight. Should be here by 13 Jan at the latest.

In the end, these bloody replacement blades have cost me $160 AU - that money could have been better put towards a $600 Shelix head for this thicknesser

They had better be good !!!!!

PS Have allowed $1 AU = $0.80 US in the above calcs

[FenceFurniture]

... although FenceFurniture seems to have had a very good run with his blades.

Mine are carbide Dengy, but you're right - i've had a good long run out of the first of four sides on each cutter. Several kilometres (counting the multiple passes for each piece).

I've just used up the last of the first face thickinessing all the cypress flooring from the Bowling Club. I knew that there were heaps of staples legs that I couldn't get out so now was a good time to sacrifice the rest of the edge. There are hundreds and hundreds of these staple legs that i can now see as flush shiny metal, and a few nails got done as well.

How did it affect the cutters? Hardly at all! One of the nails must have put a very small chip in one cutter because there is a tiny ridge to be seen in the timber, but all the staple legs did was make the blades duller than they otherwise would have been.

Just for reference and to give you an idea of longevity - just the Cypress is 750 lineal metres, so that would have been around 3km just for them.

Time to rotate them now.