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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
GSO-4.7 Cru Forge V
- Thread starter elandan
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I know I want my knives. I also know Guy wants us to have products that are the best they can be. I just wonder what is a stronger driving force to Guy than wanting to get products out. I'm all for innovation like the improved handle ergonomics and heat treat.
From my point of view some other things seem like they're more trouble than they're worth. Are there hordes of people demanding an undetectable transition from handle to tang? Do microtextured handles increase current sales?
There seems to be a growing mass of customers that just want their knife in a time frame that makes the future look manageable.
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- May 7, 2012
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I'm not in agreement with the handle tolerances being super crazy important because the clearance in the hole for the fasteners is much wider than the handle tolerances (no pins for positioning) and interchangeable handles means you are not likely to achieve that fit again without significant fiddling and tightening.
At the end of the day Guy knows everyone wants their knives.
At the end of the day Guy knows everyone wants their knives.
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At the expense of highjacking this thread, I've got to tell you this: I read that Silver had given a "guesstimate" of 2019 for the GSO 6 which was extrapolated based on the current production and fulfillment pace. If such scenario holds true and proves to be correct, I don't care if it's going to made out of Valyrian Steel and all tweaked out in the same fashion as Longclaw as I will just lose interest by then and will be done with this!
dogboye
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You and me both.
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Don't you pull me back in or else I'll stick a pin on your voodoo doll. In somewhere which you'll actually enjoy
trevitrace
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Retracted.
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Cool! I was later in April (26th), and have not received my notice yet. Hopefully later this week.
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Now that's what I call moving in the right direction :thumbup:
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The Cru Forge V blades are not suffering the fitment issues we are seeing on the other GSO-4.7s. So most of those orders have been built already and will be ready to be packed up as soon as Guy has them sharpened. As a result, those should go pretty quickly at this point.
The reason these aren't running into the same issues is partly because the steel machined like butter, especially compared to the CPM steels. The parts that do the machining wear out a lot sooner with the CPM steels, requiring more changes. If the operator doesn't notice that slight change for a while you can end up with a range of blades that are within tolerances, but still not quite perfect. Stack that with the tolerances between handle material densities, and any other variables I'm not thinking of, and you could easily end up with hot spots in your palm. Most of the time, things go together perfectly (or at least with a slight reaming of the fastener holes to get any slag out). These GSO-4.7s are that other time. I believe that is largely because they were one of the first runs to be cut with the water jet and then machined to size. Future runs should not run into the same issues now that everyone is learning what to look out for.
The reason these aren't running into the same issues is partly because the steel machined like butter, especially compared to the CPM steels. The parts that do the machining wear out a lot sooner with the CPM steels, requiring more changes. If the operator doesn't notice that slight change for a while you can end up with a range of blades that are within tolerances, but still not quite perfect. Stack that with the tolerances between handle material densities, and any other variables I'm not thinking of, and you could easily end up with hot spots in your palm. Most of the time, things go together perfectly (or at least with a slight reaming of the fastener holes to get any slag out). These GSO-4.7s are that other time. I believe that is largely because they were one of the first runs to be cut with the water jet and then machined to size. Future runs should not run into the same issues now that everyone is learning what to look out for.
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Thanks for the update, Ellie!
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- Sep 10, 2014
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Hey Ellie, who is the everyone you're talking about? Is this a problem with the water-jet people or something that Guy is figuring out on his end? Just curious, not looking to spear you guys. I know the blade is already cut when you guys get it in shop, but is the primary bevel already in place or is that something you guys do in house also? Thanks!
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Grind is also done outside the shop.
There is a lot of learning to be done by all parties involved. IMO part of the problem is the huge runs being done at one time, and the learning curve for everyone involved. I am sure if the runs were quite small they could learn much faster, and there would be way fewer knives with the same issues, but that's not the way S!K works, so Guy is taking time to correct things, vs shipping them less than ideal which is how they shipped in the past.
Thanks for the feedback Ellie! It's greatly appreciated and helps us outside of your shop understand the issues you and Guys are up against. I can tell you that I manage custom manufacturing business where each and every order is unique. When there is a problem or an issue with a tool it can reek havoc with the entire schedule and as a result create a cascading series delays but that's, somewhat, life in the custom manufacturing business. Form my perspective, the Survive team is performing at an incredibly high level and outputting arguably the best "bang-for-your-buck" survival knife on the market today! Keep up the great work and just keep your loyal customers updated on the progress, good or bad, as most of us can take it.
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"Everyone" is everyone involved in the process, from the people making the steel to me doing the final QC before packing orders.
The primary bevel is already done when we get the blades. We order the steel and have it sent between the various heavy machining steps. The Berger machine that does the bevel is really neat, but there aren't very many that do contract work in the US. They are very expensive and require tooling and a machine shop to run, not to mention qualified operators. Maybe someday we could have our own, but much larger fish in this pond have tried and failed so it is not something we are considering any time soon. Without that machine there is no way SURVIVE! blades could have the tolerances they do while producing the amount of knives we make. It allows us to do things like changeable handles and sheaths that fit the same on all of the knives.
When we get the blades they go through an initial QC and get put in one of five piles: good - could be made good - factory 2nds - could be made into something else - scrap. For the heavy machining we have sourced out who we believe are the best in the industry, but there are still variations in the final product no matter what. We try to work closely with each company to keep the good pile heavy and the scrap pile light. Then we work with what arrives to provide what we feel is the best product we can make.
This is the end result of years of research by Guy. He originally thought he could just design a knife and have it made by another knife company. After a few tries that provided results he wasn't happy with, Guy decided to do more research. When he realized that many companies use subcontractors for the heavy machining he decided to give that a try so he could have more oversight on the final product but still didn't need the millions required to get it all under one roof. It worked much better and now here we are.
In this picture, the middle knife is what we receive.
https://www.instagram.com/p/9JYlZ7JbhP/?taken-by=surviveknives
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