Disappointed once again by Survive!. S!K issues are getting old.

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I have no interest in these knives, and only got here circuitously. That said, the response from Survive above is laughable gobbledygook.
 
SURVIVE! Ellie said:
As we have mentioned before, our top priority is quality. There is a lot of time that goes into each order, even when everything is going together smoothly. We have been dealing with several different issues that needed worked through to make sure each of these knives will have amazing fit and finish. These issues are not our fault, but they are our responsibility. We are continuing to streamline our processes to make sure the quality stays up as we scale up our output. How many companies have you heard about that "used to make really great knives but started having quality control issues once they got popular"? We don't want to be one of those companies.

We have been making changes that have been improving efficiency in the workshop. Guy had a huge breakthrough recently, which will have a bigger impact. There are still several models being worked on right now and we are doing our best to get through all of the existing orders.
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As a potential customer and one who frequently buys knives like you make, this reply is even WORSE than all of the pages of negative threads combined. Not only is your company behind at manufacturing, communication isn't your strong suit either.
 
SURVIVE! Ellie said:
As we have mentioned before, our top priority is quality. There is a lot of time that goes into each order, even when everything is going together smoothly. We have been dealing with several different issues that needed worked through to make sure each of these knives will have amazing fit and finish. These issues are not our fault, but they are our responsibility. We are continuing to streamline our processes to make sure the quality stays up as we scale up our output. How many companies have you heard about that "used to make really great knives but started having quality control issues once they got popular"? We don't want to be one of those companies.

We have been making changes that have been improving efficiency in the workshop. Guy had a huge breakthrough recently, which will have a bigger impact. There are still several models being worked on right now and we are doing our best to get through all of the existing orders.
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Well Ellie, now that I have you here let's cut to the chase on a few things. Yes, we've all heard of the quality issues with Bark River. IIRC, what I also hear, regardless of what can be said about Mike Stewart is that if you buy a BR knife and there is a quality issue, you just send it back and he'll send you another one. That is as it should be.

Why are you working on other models instead of finishing the orders according to your production schedule that you just posted. It says my 2.7 should be shipping any day now, yet you are working on other models?

More questions, the last being the most important.

1. ncrockclimb said you would post a boiler plate response and he posted that 15 minutes before your boiler plate response. Isn't it ironic that this has happened so often that we all know what the response will be?

2. How much has the efficiency improved? As a professional person with years of production experience, I would ask you what your metrics are for determining any improvement in efficiency and output? Since you're not a high speed operation, it should be easy to track and explain to all of us. Something along the lines of "we used to produce X finished knives per week when we had no issues, now that we've improved process A and G, we are up to Y finished knives per week". Do you have any stats whatsoever other than "we've made improvements"?

3. What "breakthrough" did Guy have? I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed and never the smartest person in any room but even I can assemble and sharpen a knife (and Guy has 5 years experience on his own knives!). IIRC there have been a few times where you guys have had breakthroughs but nothing has changed for your customers.

4. Last but not least. Please tell me why, when I've called and emailed, you and/or Jordyn (who quoted you) have lied to me about when my knife would ship? I spoke to you personally on November 7th and your words were, among others, "it should ship in a couple weeks". How many issues could possibly come up in the past 4 months that it didn't happen. So I inquired again around the first of the year and was told the same thing. Here we are in March and I was told in the email that I posted that it would ship last week. Why do you believe it is okay to continue to lie to me constantly instead of either shipping my knife or telling me the truth?

It's not okay.

I'll ask again. When will my knife ship?

Give me what I paid for so I can get back to enjoying the outdoors and put this entire horrific ordeal behind me.
 
Riz! said:
Hale Storm,

You've not lost me. Every person is fully entitled to their thoughts/feelings on this topic. I totally understand why you and others are upset and dont hold anything against you for those feelings.

What I dont understand is the need to rant on the forums. Just like you, most of us are outdoor enthusiasts and love our knives as much as our guns and other gear. Those that ordered an S!K want them. I ordered a 4.5 a long time ago and it will arrive at some point. Until then I just am trying to enjoy the sharing of sportsmanship and love of the outdoors that exists on this subforum as well as enjoying the couple S!Ks that I have.

Either way, Hale, there is nothing but love for you. When you get that knife you better put it to use and start a nice review thread! Make sure its loaded with pictures!

Riz
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Thanks Riz! I did just that. I had to go to my deer lease today (sweet!) and pick up a ladder for work on the old house. I grabbed a couple things from the fridge, threw them in the truck and took off. A quick little hike to check on the property, a quick fire and a delicious lunch (delicious to me anyway) and back home to work. I would have loved to have had my new 2.7 to build the fire and prep the food but instead I had to take my Lion Steel M4.

It was a great couple hours. Being in the outdoors just soothes me to my soul. I didn't want to leave. I did have a knife, a pistol, and a shotgun. I could have played hookie from work and just stayed for 3 or 4 days. Man, I'm dreamin' now.

Thanks again Riz.
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Hale Storm said:
Well Ellie, now that I have you here let's cut to the chase on a few things. Yes, we've all heard of the quality issues with Bark River. IIRC, what I also hear, regardless of what can be said about Mike Stewart is that if you buy a BR knife and there is a quality issue, you just send it back and he'll send you another one. That is as it should be.

Why are you working on other models instead of finishing the orders according to your production schedule that you just posted. It says my 2.7 should be shipping any day now, yet you are working on other models?

More questions, the last being the most important.

1. ncrockclimb said you would post a boiler plate response and he posted that 15 minutes before your boiler plate response. Isn't it ironic that this has happened so often that we all know what the response will be?

2. How much has the efficiency improved? As a professional person with years of production experience, I would ask you what your metrics are for determining any improvement in efficiency and output? Since you're not a high speed operation, it should be easy to track and explain to all of us. Something along the lines of "we used to produce X finished knives per week when we had no issues, now that we've improved process A and G, we are up to Y finished knives per week". Do you have any stats whatsoever other than "we've made improvements"?

3. What "breakthrough" did Guy have? I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed and never the smartest person in any room but even I can assemble and sharpen a knife (and Guy has 5 years experience on his own knives!). IIRC there have been a few times where you guys have had breakthroughs but nothing has changed for your customers.

4. Last but not least. Please tell me why, when I've called and emailed, you and/or Jordyn (who quoted you) have lied to me about when my knife would ship? I spoke to you personally on November 7th and your words were, among others, "it should ship in a couple weeks". How many issues could possibly come up in the past 4 months that it didn't happen. So I inquired again around the first of the year and was told the same thing. Here we are in March and I was told in the email that I posted that it would ship last week. Why do you believe it is okay to continue to lie to me constantly instead of either shipping my knife or telling me the truth?

It's not okay.

I'll ask again. When will my knife ship?

Give me what I paid for so I can get back to enjoying the outdoors and put this entire horrific ordeal behind me.
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Hey Ronnie, please excuse my brevity. I'm pretty tired and need to get up early tomorrow for work but I'll try to address your concerns. Firstly, your knife is done and sitting in a box. It should be in the mail tomorrow, it was just too late to get it in the mail on Friday.

Ok, let me work my way down the line. To address the production schedule "order", those are bullet points of things we're currently working on in the shop but they aren't necessarily being done strictly in the order listed.

I try to share photos and videos on Instagram to give a basic idea of the volume of knives we produce. Beyond that though I'm not really inclined to discuss my production numbers in an online forum. You can call that evasive or whatever else you like but I don't see anyone but large, publicly held companies disclosing their numbers.

The "breakthrough" has to do with my post from several weeks ago, regarding handle material warping/twisting. Honestly, I'll just let package tracking numbers in the coming days, weeks and months be my reply to that. For the weekly orders we'll be caught up within this month. You can quote me on that. You're also about to see huge numbers of preorders heading out.

It is true that we don't do our heavy machining in house. Whether they publicly disclose it or not, most small to medium sized companies don't. That doesn't mean that all we do here is assemble and sharpen our knives. I fine tune edge thickness and panel heights after production machining. I also repair any handling damage or machining/grinding inconsistencies that happen to the annealed blades. The people I work with do their best but stuff happens. I surface finish all of the blades, which are done one by one. Dan Keffeler can tell you, it isn't a short cut, mass finishing technique. For the best results possible we do all of our own engraving. We do any hand fitting necessary to ensure good fit and finish between the blade and handles, while still maintaining a level of consistency that allows reliable fitment in any of our factory kydex sheaths. We do our handle micro-texturing in house as well. And finally, as you stated, we sharpen our knives.

I apologize that you feel lied to or misled. That wasn't anyone's intention and it certainly wasn't done maliciously. Ellie and Jordyn were giving estimates based on the best information they had at the time. Until very recently, only knowing that the knives were needing a ton of seemingly random hand fitting adjustments, things were much, MUCH slower than I would have liked. Now that the issues have been identified, I've implemented a solution for moving forward.
 
Good to see you posting here Guy, I hope you see the other stuff going on in other threads, not just this kind of thing. Regardless, glad to see that Mr. Hale Storm is getting taken care of.

Now, show me all of your receipts and tax records!

😀

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 
The fact that guy even responded to this is pretty cool. I don't know the first thing about knife production and even if I did I'm not going to question how your particular business is run. There are many variables, that also can change on a constant basis . I'm also not going to call anyone a liar because I know that when you have a deadline that is not met it is unfortunate but it doesn't bring anyone's intentions or integrity into question. With that being said life is full of constant let downs and the more you expect the more you are let down . I personally try and forget about the knife so when it does finally come it's a great and surprising feeling . I also know that complaining sometimes can slow the process down anyways I'm still waiting for my 4.1 😊
 
It's good to see Guy on here. Someone please buy that "guy" a membership for his BD :)
 
Master Hale...
Thank you for this thread. It has helped answer questions and concerns, it appears, for many.
Every business regardless of size and reputation is ultimately held accountable to its customers. Thank you Guy for your response.
Addressing repeated concerns... with honesty, understanding, frankness, kindness, and gratitude... from disgruntled customers is a very good practice. It also can turn alienation to a feeling of belonging and teamwork... good communication being a cornerstone of every good relationship.
Sir Hale.. Please check you Hotmail... and... How are you liking that M4???
 
Despite it all when they start weekly sales for the 12 I will have a very hard time resisting. :)
 
I ordered my 4.7 Cru Forge V last spring because I thought it was one of the knives that was shipping immediately and I wanted it for an upcoming hike in Dolly Sods. I realized after making the purchase that this knife wasn't immediately available, so I called the S!K shop the following morning at 9:20 PT.

"Hello, Survive Knives."

"Hi. [long pause] Is this Ellie?"

"Yes."

"Oh, hi Ellie. Yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah, I'd like to cancel this order please."

"No problem."

Money was back in my account a couple days later. I took my 4.1 instead.

Waiting on 2.7, 4.5, 7/7 and 12. Don't plan on canceling these orders as of now. Perhaps the OP was bothered by the latest update using illness (I hope you guys didn't have the flu I have, it's brutal) as an excuse for this past month of halted production after all the months and years of, well, halted production. I'm not so bothered by the S!K issues - I pretty much know what to expect in them now so I read over em quickly and then go buy knives here at bladeforums and my favorite knife sites that I know will ship within a few days. Regardless of the often inaccurate production/shipping dates in the 1st Friday Updates, I'm glad they're keeping in touch...

Go peruse the Hall of Shame to find a long list of 'makers' and 'dealers' who will happily charge you and then never send you a knife (they rob you) - that's something to get upset about. But I hear ya OP. Just cancel and get money back or waaaaaaaaiiiiiiit.
 
I've waiting on the 7/7 for quite a bit now and but don't mind as long as I get a top quality knife in the end. I've been burned to many time buying knives with quality control issues. Survive Knives please don't loose quality control to just push out more units.
 
I'll be interested to see if Hale Storm gets a tracking number today.

I have 3 first gen Survive blades and I really, really like them.
I bailed on all the Pre-orders because I've seen this exact situation happen all to often with small companies.

I still stop in from time to time to see if things have smoothed out and I'm hopeful they will down the road.
Until then, I've moved on to other brands. If things change and I can buy a knife with a reasonable effort, I'll be back.

Good luck all!
 
evltcat said:
I'll be interested to see if Hale Storm gets a tracking number today.
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If he doesn't... :mad:

evltcat said:
I have 3 first gen Survive blades and I really, really like them.
I bailed on all the Pre-orders because I've seen this exact situation happen all to often with small companies.

I still stop in from time to time to see if things have smoothed out and I'm hopeful they will down the road.
Until then, I've moved on to other brands. If things change and I can buy a knife with a reasonable effort, I'll be back.

Good luck all!
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:thumbup: Yup, still a bumpy ride of waiting. S!K improves production capacity but then tells everybody and opens their books WAY too wide and ends up way behind again. *shrug* BUT they are still producing :) So I'll keep waiting.


To everybody wanting an easier time of it, some of us "boardies" (I think i read that above) ordered knives that we know we'll need to sell again or that (as is common in my case) are more than we need and we just aren't putting them to use the way they deserve so they end up on the exchange. Keep your eyes peeled when you start reading about S!K fans getting their orders in. We aren't all selfish hoarders like OBX ;) (not envious at all, nope, uh-ah)



Hale, I'll admit that I hate these threads BUT based on Guy's personal response above, I am glad you posted. :thumbup: I also hope that the thread is closed once you have (at long last) your knife. Until the next one ;)
 
I did get a shipping notice today and a very cordial response from Guy. I was a bit surprised by that given my level of complaining. THANK YOU GUY, ELLIE, AND JORDYN!

Thank you to everyone for all the support and if I offended anyone along the way, I apologize. None of it was ever personal. Just business.

Priority mail normally gets here in a couple days so my 2.7 should be here by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest.

I'm done for now with S!K unless it's the exchange (I still need a GSO 10 that won't cost me whore house prices) or the big auction site. If and when they smooth things out and get knives in stock, I''ll be back for more. I'm anxious to see the 12 and see if it can dethrone my venerable ESEE Junglas. I've yet to find a better large blade for the price anywhere.

I will be around and posting (I still never got any oooh's and aahhhh's for my very rare M390 GSO 4.1 with Melamine scales. I think Ellie said there were only 7 sets of those scales in the wild. ).

I'll post some pics when it gets here.

Thanks again S!K and thanks Guy for responding personally. Good luck to you and your team.
 
chiral.grolim said:
If he doesn't... :mad:



:thumbup: Yup, still a bumpy ride of waiting. S!K improves production capacity but then tells everybody and opens their books WAY too wide and ends up way behind again. *shrug* BUT they are still producing :) So I'll keep waiting.


To everybody wanting an easier time of it, some of us "boardies" (I think i read that above) ordered knives that we know we'll need to sell again or that (as is common in my case) are more than we need and we just aren't putting them to use the way they deserve so they end up on the exchange. Keep your eyes peeled when you start reading about S!K fans getting their orders in. We aren't all selfish hoarders like OBX ;) (not envious at all, nope, uh-ah)



Hale, I'll admit that I hate these threads BUT based on Guy's personal response above, I am glad you posted. :thumbup: I also hope that the thread is closed once you have (at long last) your knife. Until the next one ;)
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Thanks Chiral. I appreciate that. Much respect to you.
 
SURVIVAL SASQUATCH said:
Master Hale...
Thank you for this thread. It has helped answer questions and concerns, it appears, for many.
Every business regardless of size and reputation is ultimately held accountable to its customers. Thank you Guy for your response.
Addressing repeated concerns... with honesty, understanding, frankness, kindness, and gratitude... from disgruntled customers is a very good practice. It also can turn alienation to a feeling of belonging and teamwork... good communication being a cornerstone of every good relationship.
Sir Hale.. Please check you Hotmail... and... How are you liking that M4???
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Hey Doc. Good to see you here. That M4 is outstanding. Prepared the fire, made a few feather sticks, batoned a little tinder, and prepped the meal with it. Very comfortable ergos on the handle. No hot spots for my hand.
Only issue for MY use is the rounded spine. Won't strike a fire steel at all but it sure adds a nice look to the knife.
I call the M4 usable art. Luckily, I usually carry a striker or have another blade on me just about everywhere I go. T
he leather sheath is top notch for a production sheath. I'll make some custom kydex pants for it soon and get a fire steel and striker on there as well.

M390, great ergos, and beautiful olive wood scales for less than $140.00 to my door. I have nothing bad to say about it. Get one. You won't be disappointed.

The only reason I don't get some more models is they come in N690 or Niolox I believe and I'm a huge fan of M390, 20CV, Elmax, etc. I like the N690 but thinner with a full flat grind like my Spyderco's.
 
HELL YES! Im happy for you. So happy for both of you whp gpt notices!
 
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