Bark River knives?

If they continue to produce copious amounts of spark when power grinding and quench in water to cool in between and have publicly proclaimed that they will not change the way they do things, then how could the end result be better? And I can see why they would choose to eschew BladeForums: There is too great an accrued knowledge base here. Couple that with the collective of bladesmiths, metallurgists and experienced users who literally reside here and you have an environment that won't stand for shenanigans.
 
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Jhansenak47 said:
The regulars would attack people. M. Stewart could be a prick, but he preferred to play stuff off and tell people to send it in, mentioning on more than one occasion that the appropriate course of action was to not post issues on the forum and instead anonymously call their dealer or BRKT directly.
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Well, I did exactly that when I had a significant issue with one of their knives (catastrophic edge failure when whittling). I worked directly with Mike Stewart instead of going public. But when it descended into lack of response on his part, months after I sent the knife back, I finally posted on KF a question how I should deal with it because Mike was not responding. That immediately unleashed a barrage of insults from the fanboys, and Mike finally responded in a very childish way. I have posted the whole story elsewhere if anyone wants to look for it (I think it is in one of the threads linked by QAJAQ in the eighth post in this thread). After that I sold off all of my BR knives except one, and will never purchase another. I have had good knives from BR and bad ones, but I won't have to worry about getting another one, good or bad, ever again.
 
lambertiana said:
Well, I did exactly that when I had a significant issue with one of their knives (catastrophic edge failure when whittling). I worked directly with Mike Stewart instead of going public. But when it descended into lack of response on his part, months after I sent the knife back, I finally posted on KF a question how I should deal with it because Mike was not responding. That immediately unleashed a barrage of insults from the fanboys, and Mike finally responded in a very childish way. I have posted the whole story elsewhere if anyone wants to look for it (I think it is in one of the threads linked by QAJAQ in the eighth post in this thread). After that I sold off all of my BR knives except one, and will never purchase another. I have had good knives from BR and bad ones, but I won't have to worry about getting another one, good or bad, ever again.
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I bet he made it out like you were the unreasonable one and that he would graciously help you out. (Not being sarcastic about you lambertiana.)
 
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The culture of blaming the customer is still alive. The Bark River COO Jim Stewart, as recent as April 30, makes fun of customers who want to return a knife for small finish issues. (Episode #6 of Behind the Blade, at 1h:23m.) Listen to it yourself to see if it's the sort of public statement you expect from a COO.


He is talking about voids in carbon fibre handles, and mocks the hypothetical person who complains as having been the "finickiest monkey licker [?!]; the nitpickiest customer on Earth" and then goes on to do a mocking whiny voice impression of the complainer.

This mockery is not necessary. The co-host, five minutes prior, also complained about the difficulty of providing perfect products with difficult materials, but didn't blame the customer. He just said that he had "concerns of returns" (1h:19m) with woods because you can send a knife to an arid location and get shrinkage. He didn't feel the need to make fun of the customer that complains about the shrinkage. Just the Bark River guy needed to blame the customer.


I understand that there are some customers that are not worth the trouble. But publicly mocking customers who return knives for finish issues is symptomatic of the stories people tell about customer service from Bark River.
 
Dangerously said:
The culture of blaming the customer is still alive. The Bark River COO Jim Stewart, as recent as April 30, makes fun of customers who want to return a knife for small finish issues. (Episode #6 of Behind the Blade, at 1h:23m.) Listen to it yourself to see if it's the sort of public statement you expect from a COO.


He is talking about voids in carbon fibre handles, and mocks the hypothetical person who complains as having been the "finickiest monkey licker [?!]; the nitpickiest customer on Earth" and then goes on to do a mocking whiny voice impression of the complainer.

This mockery is not necessary. The co-host, five minutes prior, also complained about the difficulty of providing perfect products with difficult materials, but didn't blame the customer. He just said that he had "concerns of returns" (1h:19m) with woods because you can send a knife to an arid location and get shrinkage. He didn't feel the need to make fun of the customer that complains about the shrinkage. Just the Bark River guy needed to blame the customer.


I understand that there are some customers that are not worth the trouble. But publicly mocking customers who return knives for finish issues is symptomatic of the stories people tell about customer service from Bark River.
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I agree with what you said and it really is more retarded to mock customers on anything that is being recorded for ppl to view them it is wrong. Truth is there are very whinny ppl with any type of customer service but it's not good for the business to make fun of them
 
Cpmd3v said:
I know of their baggage I just was trying to discuss their knives . We were doing so until things were brought up. We all have the www at our fingertips so if we wanted to discuss (baggage ) I'm sure we would have been . Like I said before I totally understand peoples issue w Brkt but I don't need it shoved in my face at every turn I take . It bores

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Mo2 said:

@DLT Trading
Jordan@DLT Jordan@DLT
he bought that from you, can you check your stock to verify they are miss labeled.

Do you know why bark river keeps doing this?
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Who says it's mislabeled?

I understand it's a stainless and probably shouldn't act like that but I'm no expert.. I know heat treat has a lot to do with how the steel acts and I've also heard that what the knives are grinded on could I guess basically throw rusty metal particles all over the blade or metal that will rust easy on the finish of the blade... idk if that's true I just want to know how you are sure it's mislabeled
 
I think Bark River keeps doing this because they get away with it . . . at least enough.

By the way, I am not a returning troll, but a newbie who posted the historical threads (but some rather recent) to help other newbies to get the same educational benefits I got (and continue to get) from Blade Forums. Of course everyone should make their own judgments, but it's hard to judge without any information.

I've had knives (slip-joints) all my life, but only recently moved into modern high-quality knives. There was a lot to learn, and I got some of that learning by looking over the offerings of many different manufacturers & custom makers. Bark River was SO impressive: they had some of the most beautiful pictures on the internet, and so many models, and so many choices of steels and handle materials, and they did it all in such a small shop!

Then I read the complaint threads about Bark River knives: bad heat treatments, dull edges, asymmetrical grinds, voids in handles, handles poorly attached, cheap steels sold as premium steels. And the first responses to customer complaints were usually insults or denials. THEN I remembered the roofing contractor I once worked for who cut every possible corner to get the roofs on quickly & cheaply (if you don't have enough felt for the job, just lay down the shingles; no need to use 3 nails when 2 nails will hold a shingle in place).

Maybe Mr. Stewart has changed his business model. Maybe he found religion in jail (many do) and is now committed to dealing more fairly with his remote customers in than he did with the partners and employees who were part of his corporate family at Blackjack. Each of us must make our own calls on these questions.

But you can't make good calls without the relevant information. Newbies deserve to have the information; those who are bored or frustrated can skip it.
 
Gradyw said:
Who says it's mislabeled?

I understand it's a stainless and probably shouldn't act like that but I'm no expert.. I know heat treat has a lot to do with how the steel acts and I've also heard that what the knives are grinded on could I guess basically throw rusty metal particles all over the blade or metal that will rust easy on the finish of the blade... idk if that's true I just want to know how you are sure it's mislabeled
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its def mislabeled. No cpm154 will rust like that. He even cleaned it off from any debris that might be on it with sanding it.
And yes heat treatment can be made to prolong rust... But this is def not cpm154 and bark river have a history of mis labeling.

Why offer a stainless option if it's gonna rust and you already have an a2 that will rust. Doesn't make sense. Also doesn't make sense to off stainless and use the same belts as carbon steel. That's bad business.
 
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Pretty cool test. The tester's pretty laid back, I'd have been pretty pissed off finding out my CPM154 was non-stainless. Is it incompetence or a rip-off? There's too many other good knives out in the world to mess with these jokers. What's that song:

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with a BRKT knife :)
 
Hey guys,

We had a talk at the store this morning about this issue. Here is what Jason has to say.

We share in the frustration. We really do. I don’t honestly know if this knife was mislabeled or it is a cross contamination issue or something completely different. I did call Mike at Bark River Knives to discuss and he said if he gets the knife back he should be able to figure out what the issue was. I reinforced with him that whatever the cause we all share in the pain of it happening and although I understand they produce thousands and thousands of knives in an array of steels, we need to come as close to eliminating this issue completely as we can.

Mike assured me there will be some new protocols with blade marking and stenciling to ensure blades are being marked properly. This mismarking is not acceptable in my opinion and I tried my best to convey to him that it has to be completely cleared up. Immediately.

Unfortunately, there is no way for us at DLT to look at a knife an immediately tell what the steel is so it is not as simple as having one of my employees look at the knife prior to shipment. If it were I would be happy to do so. I have talked with Derrick at KSF and he shares in my frustration and desire to drive a stake through this issue. Because DLT and KSF have front line contact with the customer we generally end up eating shipping costs both ways on these mismarked knives even though it is of no fault of either DLT or KSF. Clearly, on international orders it is extremely costly.

Personally, if I were buying a knife, I would expect to have an assurance that the knife I buy has the steel I ordered it in. As such, I would expect no less for my customers. I will do all I can to push Bark River to fully implement protocols to eliminate any of these issues going forward. At DLT we have built our business on honesty and transparency in the marketplace and will continue to do so. If any of the members here have suggestions or want to provide me with feedback please email me at jason@dlttrading.com
or
Jordan@dlttrading.com

I want to be clear that we are reaching out to cedricAda as well about this issue.
 
as someone who's been searching for an edc sized bark river on the secondary market, this is pretty discouraging... i was especially interested in the 154 models as i'm a fan of traditional/gentleman designs with modern steels, tolerances, and f&f
 
Jordan@DLT said:
Hey guys,

We had a talk at the store this morning about this issue. Here is what Jason has to say.

We share in the frustration. We really do. I don’t honestly know if this knife was mislabeled or it is a cross contamination issue or something completely different. I did call Mike at Bark River Knives to discuss and he said if he gets the knife back he should be able to figure out what the issue was. I reinforced with him that whatever the cause we all share in the pain of it happening and although I understand they produce thousands and thousands of knives in an array of steels, we need to come as close to eliminating this issue completely as we can.

Mike assured me there will be some new protocols with blade marking and stenciling to ensure blades are being marked properly. This mismarking is not acceptable in my opinion and I tried my best to convey to him that it has to be completely cleared up. Immediately.

Unfortunately, there is no way for us at DLT to look at a knife an immediately tell what the steel is so it is not as simple as having one of my employees look at the knife prior to shipment. If it were I would be happy to do so. I have talked with Derrick at KSF and he shares in my frustration and desire to drive a stake through this issue. Because DLT and KSF have front line contact with the customer we generally end up eating shipping costs both ways on these mismarked knives even though it is of no fault of either DLT or KSF. Clearly, on international orders it is extremely costly.

Personally, if I were buying a knife, I would expect to have an assurance that the knife I buy has the steel I ordered it in. As such, I would expect no less for my customers. I will do all I can to push Bark River to fully implement protocols to eliminate any of these issues going forward. At DLT we have built our business on honesty and transparency in the marketplace and will continue to do so. If any of the members here have suggestions or want to provide me with feedback please email me at jason@dlttrading.com
or
Jordan@dlttrading.com

I want to be clear that we are reaching out to cedricAda as well about this issue.
Click to expand...

We're glad that you and Derrick, as Mike's major dealers, can help keep his feet to the fire on this. I don't have a dog in the fight, but DLT and KSF are both stand-up folks.
 
Wow, that test is pretty telling. There is no way that CPM154 rusts quicker than O1. I don't think the tester is biased against Bark River either, he has favorably reviewed their knives in the past.

If Bark River didn't have a verified and well documented history of mislabeling their knives; I would be willing to discount the test. But they do.

I will not purchase any knives from Bark River or their many associates. It it too bad, I'm sure they have many well-meaning employees who do good work who will be hurt by this.

I will also do my best to spread the word to other knife collectors that Bark River cannot be trusted.
 
There's no way they can know it was caused by mis-marking the blade. In production QC you do not assign cause w/o objective evidence. As a purveyor, you can develop a more reliable supplier...
 
Jordan@DLT said:
Hey guys,

We had a talk at the store this morning about this issue. Here is what Jason has to say.

We share in the frustration. We really do. I don’t honestly know if this knife was mislabeled or it is a cross contamination issue or something completely different. I did call Mike at Bark River Knives to discuss and he said if he gets the knife back he should be able to figure out what the issue was. I reinforced with him that whatever the cause we all share in the pain of it happening and although I understand they produce thousands and thousands of knives in an array of steels, we need to come as close to eliminating this issue completely as we can.

Mike assured me there will be some new protocols with blade marking and stenciling to ensure blades are being marked properly. This mismarking is not acceptable in my opinion and I tried my best to convey to him that it has to be completely cleared up. Immediately.

Unfortunately, there is no way for us at DLT to look at a knife an immediately tell what the steel is so it is not as simple as having one of my employees look at the knife prior to shipment. If it were I would be happy to do so. I have talked with Derrick at KSF and he shares in my frustration and desire to drive a stake through this issue. Because DLT and KSF have front line contact with the customer we generally end up eating shipping costs both ways on these mismarked knives even though it is of no fault of either DLT or KSF. Clearly, on international orders it is extremely costly.

Personally, if I were buying a knife, I would expect to have an assurance that the knife I buy has the steel I ordered it in. As such, I would expect no less for my customers. I will do all I can to push Bark River to fully implement protocols to eliminate any of these issues going forward. At DLT we have built our business on honesty and transparency in the marketplace and will continue to do so. If any of the members here have suggestions or want to provide me with feedback please email me at jason@dlttrading.com
or
Jordan@dlttrading.com

I want to be clear that we are reaching out to cedricAda as well about this issue.
Click to expand...

I am 100% on board with Jason. Also, this is why if you don't buy from KnivesShipFree, you should buy from DLT. Jason and I are competitors, but we share a passion for knives and our customers.

Derrick
 
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