Customer service K&G verse WSSI

J

Jwgriesser

Joined
Sep 20, 2015
Messages
90
I had great experience with K&G. They answered the phone and told me status of my order. However I wanted to try double dyed next. So I sent my next order to WSSI.

I sent WSSI wood to be double dyed and stabilized in Dec. I called them and Email them. No one ever answers the phone or Email. I called them during all parts of the day and the phone rings with no answer.

What kind of operation is this? Has anyone been able to contact them. Do you ever get your order back?

What has been your experience? Any advice other than flying out to Iowa?

Thanks Jay
 
Do a search, this topic comes up fairly often. WSSI is good quality product, has not ripped anyone off that I know of, but takes a LONG, LONG time to get the wood back, and is difficult to get a response from.

Darcy:)
 
Sadly, Mike at WSSI has become overworked ( burned out?), and does not answer the phone or email. K&G is great with customer service and really fast in turn around. I just t=sent them 70 pounds of wood. They called me the day it arrived and discussed some details of the stabilization, made some recommendations, and proceeded. I got the first 30 pounds back a week later. The rest is in progress and will ship soon. With WSSI, those size batches took up to six months.

The stabilization from K&G was excellent.
 
I've had horrible experience with Mike at wssi. I will never send another piece of wood there. I also know others that have had bad experiences as well and will now be sending all our wood to K&G.
Ive been dealing with my issue with Mike for years. He has never once returned a phone call to me. Only got lucky 2 times to get a hold of him and I believe its because I used someone else phone so he would not recognize my phone number.
 
Got back all my wood in less than three weeks. Stabilizing and dying was awesome. They called and discussed a few things, did the stabilizing, called me as each batch was ready and shipped it out in three batches over a 10 day period. Came back at 130 pounds. Couldn't be more pleased.

All has now been sanded to 400, lacquered, and will be at the Harrisonburg show next week. The sample pieces I buffed out showed that most of this is premium to exhibition grade.
 
Stacy what's this Harrisonburg show you speak of? Is it a decent knife show that someone could travel 3 hours for?
 
Stacy:
I am glad K & G treated you well. Any idea on how I can get any results from WSSI? Anyone have ideas?
Thanks Jay
 
LCoop,
Yes it is worth a 3 hour drive ( it is a 4 hour drive for me). It is the Shenandoah Valley Custom Knife show. Nothing but knives, most handmade, great people, not Goths or gun nuts. Friendliest show I ever attended.
http://www.svkc.org/annual_show

Jay,
Just keep calling and emailing. Eventually you will get your wood. Mike has never not delivered as far as I know ... it just takes a very long time. If it has been more than 3-4 months, I would send Mike a letter. You could ask him to either finish the batch or send it back.
 
All I can say is I have had great service from K&G. Always answered my calls and emails and great turn round on the small lots of wood I have sent them. The first couple times I sent them about 2-3 pounds of wood to be stabilized. Just sent them 7.5 pounds Friday. For a small customer they have done a great job.

Randy
 
All this discussion, as well as preparing several hundred blocks in the last week have made me do some thinking:

Instead of sending a big shipment once a year or so, I have decided to send them a 5-10# box the first of every month. The flat rare shipping makes this the most affordable plan, and makes the clean-up time less. I can sand and buff the blocks in my spare time over a month instead of doing a marathon weekend of sanding and spraying lacquer. I will cut blocks from dried wood and trim them to size, and place in the box. I will add the new blocks to the manifest sheet as I put them in. This will prevent the "What the heck was this wood???" problems with wood you cut up a year earlier, and greatly easy identification after stabilization. I will label the blocks/scales immediately after processing them, too. It isn't much trouble to do label and price 20-30 blocks at a time.

I think this will help organize my time, and lead to better merchandising of the wood. I am also thinking of putting some in The Exchange.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Got back all my wood in less than three weeks. Stabilizing and dying was awesome. They called and discussed a few things, did the stabilizing, called me as each batch was ready and shipped it out in three batches over a 10 day period. Came back at 130 pounds. Couldn't be more pleased.

All has now been sanded to 400, lacquered, and will be at the Harrisonburg show next week. The sample pieces I buffed out showed that most of this is premium to exhibition grade.
Click to expand...

Out of curiousity why do you sand so fine? You don't sell them right? I know if I sand to 220 and spray a bit of lacquer i have a very good idea of what it is going to look like. Isn't that all you need to get the idea of what you are going to put on the knife it is going on? I could see sanding that fine if I was selling them so they catch the customer's eye. Am I missing something here?
 
I am selling them at the Harrisonburg show. I sell a lot of wood and ivory to other makers and some of the other dealers. I'll put some in The Exchange... someday.

I find that a 220 grit finish doesn't show as much of the fine figure and chatoyance in a block as the 400 grit finish does. Mind you, I am not making a high grad perfect 400 finish.

I hit all blocks on a 36 grit belt (6X48)to remove the excess resin and flatten all sides. Then I give them a fast clean up on 120, and a quick pass on 400. There are some lower grit scratches left, but the surface is smooth enough to show the fine details. A coat of spray lacquer finishes the process. I always take a few representative blocks and sand them well at 400 and buff on a linen buff with white rouge. This will show the full potential of the rest of the batch. I store each type wood in flat flip top bins with a buffed sample or two in the bin. This makes for easy display by merely unlatching the lid and setting the flat trays on the table.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I am selling them at the Harrisonburg show. I sell a lot of wood and ivory to other makers and some of the other dealers. I'll put some in The Exchange... someday.

I find that a 220 grit finish doesn't show as much of the fine figure and chatoyance in a block as the 400 grit finish does. Mind you, I am not making a high grad perfect 400 finish.

I hit all blocks on a 36 grit belt (6X48)to remove the excess resin and flatten all sides. Then I give them a fast clean up on 120, and a quick pass on 400. There are some lower grit scratches left, but the surface is smooth enough to show the fine details. A coat of spray lacquer finishes the process. I always take a few representative blocks and sand them well at 400 and buff on a linen buff with white rouge. This will show the full potential of the rest of the batch. I store each type wood in flat flip top bins with a buffed sample or two in the bin. This makes for easy display by merely unlatching the lid and setting the flat trays on the table.
Click to expand...

Now that makes sense. I would be sanding mine finer to make them pop if I was selling them too.
 
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