Micron Knives

[MicronKnives]

On a more positive note, here is a pic of our building! This place was abandoned for quite some time and has taken months of work to get where we are not. Also attached is a before and after of the bathroom.

 

[MicronKnives]

Hold up. Wait a minute. Something ain't right. You said in your other post on the S!K thread that you purchased his equipment. I quote "We made an offer and ended up purchasing the equipment. I then purchased a building to house all the equipment. ... and spent the last few months making that place habitable (It's in horrible condition, but cheap)". Now you are saying you took over his building and had a hard time getting him out. Something ain't adding up.

No no no, I purchased his equipment. He was far behind on rent, I made an agreement with the landlord to give us time to move all of the equipment out. As you can imagine, it took a bit of time to move that much stuff.

We moved the equipment from his building to our new building

 

[RabidRat]

No no no, I purchased his equipment. He was far behind on rent, I made an agreement with the landlord to give us time to move all of the equipment out. As you can imagine, it took a bit of time to move that much stuff.

We moved the equipment from his building to our new building

Ok, but if you were just moving the equipment out, why would you be involved or care about Guy's stuff in the building and offering to give it away on marketplace? I wouldn't think any of that would be your concern or legally in your rights; that is between Guy and the landlord. You seem overly invested.

 

[MicronKnives]

Ok, but if you were just moving the equipment out, why would you be involved or care about Guy's stuff in the building and offering to give it away on marketplace? I wouldn't think any of that would be your concern or legally in your rights; that is between Guy and the landlord. You seem overly invested.

There was no happy party in all of this. The neighbors were pissed, the landlord was pissed, guy was pissed, and by the end of it all I was pissed. This was an instance where spending a little effort to keep everyone happy paid dividends. It was far more complicated than any other asset purchase I've done in the past for reasons just like this.

 

[jbmonkey]

im weary and skeptical like the others here, but im also curious when youre gonna be operating. so i can watch and see if you're a man of your word or not.....hoping you are and not like guy.......

so how far out til models, specs and pricing info is out........also no nonsense like preorders right? you'll have product ready to ship and then sell it, correct? through dealers or direct to customers? curious on things like this......

 

[Quiet]

There was no happy party in all of this. The neighbors were pissed, the landlord was pissed, guy was pissed, and by the end of it all I was pissed. This was an instance where spending a little effort to keep everyone happy paid dividends. It was far more complicated than any other asset purchase I've done in the past for reasons just like this.

This doesn't really answer RabidRat 's question, though. Everyone was pissed, but why were you involved in having to assist in clearing out this building? You made it seem that you were just there to purchase the equipment, soooo....still not sure how or why it became your responsibility to help the landlord clear the building out, or do anything other than show up, load up your purchased equipment and truck on out of there.

 

[Quiet]

im weary and skeptical like the others here, but im also curious when youre gonna be operating. so i can watch and see if you're a man of your word or not.....hoping you are and not like guy.......

so how far out til models, specs and pricing info is out........also no nonsense like preorders right? you'll have product ready to ship and then sell it, correct? through dealers or direct to customers? curious on things like this......

Agreed.

 

[SharpBits]

No good deed goes unpunished.

 

[J. Doyle]

This doesn't really answer RabidRat 's question, though. Everyone was pissed, but why were you involved in having to assist in clearing out this building? You made it seem that you were just there to purchase the equipment, soooo....still not sure how or why it became your responsibility to help the landlord clear the building out, or do anything other than show up, load up your purchased equipment and truck on out of there.

I'm starting to see a pattern of not addressing direct questions.

 

[SharpBits]

He was far behind on rent, I made an agreement with the landlord to give us time to move all of the equipment out. As you can imagine, it took a bit of time to move that much stuff.

He did a favor to receive a favor.

 

[MicronKnives]

im weary and skeptical like the others here, but im also curious when youre gonna be operating. so i can watch and see if you're a man of your word or not.....hoping you are and not like guy.......

so how far out til models, specs and pricing info is out........also no nonsense like preorders right? you'll have product ready to ship and then sell it, correct? through dealers or direct to customers? curious on things like this......

I am easily four months out from production.

The roof on the building is a couple months out, then the mills can be moved in. Three phase is three months out, then we can start on fixturing and such. Hell we don't even have a toilet at the moment

I am close to my first prototype at the moment, but that's a long way from production.

No preorders. Very simple Shopify store. Ships in 24hrs just like our machine shop. Direct to consumer at first, but country knives isn't far from me in Lancaster, it'd be cool to see my name there.

This doesn't really answer RabidRat 's question, though. Everyone was pissed, but why were you involved in having to assist in clearing out this building? You made it seem that you were just there to purchase the equipment, soooo....still not sure how or why it became your responsibility to help the landlord clear the building out, or do anything other than show up, load up your purchased equipment and truck on out of there.

The landlord required me to sign a months lease. I'm not throwing shade at him though, he was screwed out of thousands and was just protecting himself.

There was much more to the move than that. The equipment was in use. It took days of shoveling to clean out the water jet alone.

 

[MicronKnives]

He did a favor to receive a favor.

That's how I looked at it

 

[Chefget]

MicronKnives Welcome to Bladeforums!

Always good people here to welcome with a handshake!

Also those people more than ready to pee on your leg....

 

[Pàdruig]

I am not a torch and pitch fork kind of guy but I will say that your calculations ran you a bit amiss with regards to your introduction here. Though I see no problem with revealing how or where you acquired your equipment from (Guy had some really nice stuff), anything else is not really helpful (as I'm sure you are discovering).

When he got around to it, Guy's designs were decent and his equipment churned out good knives. I owned a couple at one point in time and I can attest that they were good knives. Were they the best? No. And that is largely due to the taint that his activities imparted on his product. Knife people associate a lot of worth and value with the reputation and integrity of the maker and when those attributes take a hit, the knives no longer matter, regardless of how good they are.

Folks here are largely going to side eye you, if not outright challenge you, until you start demonstrating what sets you apart from Survive. Personally, I don't think it fair to judge so early or even try to "connect dots" in an attempt to conflate you with your predecessor but had you put a bit more thought into your introduction here, I think much of that could have been avoided. Unfortunately, the community has ways of dredging up dirt so I do think being transparent on your equipment sources was a good call. I would have left it at that though and sought to establish your own brand rather than give airs to the idea that Micron is rising from the ashes, so to speak.

I will remain cautiously objective and I look forward to what you start producing. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the Survive! debacle - I sincerely hope that you can avoid the numerous pitfalls that they allowed themselves to plumb.

 

[RabidRat]

The landlord required me to sign a months lease. I'm not throwing shade at him though, he was screwed out of thousands and was just protecting himself.

There was much more to the move than that. The equipment was in use. It took days of shoveling to clean out the water jet alone.

Ok. Now somethings making sense. So the gist is... you had to take up a lease with the landlord for the time needed to get the equipment out, so it was in your interest to get Guy and his junk out of your leased space (which also helped the landlord that you were working with). You see, if you would not have gone into any detail about S!K other than a single statement that you bought his old equipment and left it at that, the skepticism might have been avoided. It is just that every time you expound on something about S!K, more questions arise from those burned by S!K. You tied your new company to this wreck. I'll leave it at that; no more questions from me.

 

[DocJD]

preorders

 

[MicronKnives]

I am not a torch and pitch fork kind of guy but I will say that your calculations ran you a bit amiss with regards to your introduction here. Though I see no problem with revealing how or where you acquired your equipment from (Guy had some really nice stuff), anything else is not really helpful (as I'm sure you are discovering).

When he got around to it, Guy's designs were decent and his equipment churned out good knives. I owned a couple at one point in time and I can attest that they were good knives. Were they the best? No. And that is largely due to the taint that his activities imparted on his product. Knife people associate a lot of worth and value with the reputation and integrity of the maker and when those attributes take a hit, the knives no longer matter, regardless of how good they are.

Folks here are largely going to side eye you, if not outright challenge you, until you start demonstrating what sets you apart from Survive. Personally, I don't think it fair to judge so early or even try to "connect dots" in an attempt to conflate you with your predecessor but had you put a bit more thought into your introduction here, I think much of that could have been avoided. Unfortunately, the community has ways of dredging up dirt so I do think being transparent on your equipment sources was a good call. I would have left it at that though and sought to establish your own brand rather than give airs to the idea that Micron is rising from the ashes, so to speak.

I will remain cautiously objective and I look forward to what you start producing. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the Survive! debacle - I sincerely hope that you can avoid the numerous pitfalls that they allowed themselves to plumb.

I know that manufacturing and development your own products come with pitfalls and challenges and setbacks. It was how survive handled those that was the problem. I'm excited to show you all how I do things. Thanks for your impartiality

 

[Pàdruig]

I know that manufacturing and development your own products come with pitfalls and challenges and setbacks. It was how survive handled those that was the problem. I'm excited to show you all how I do things. Thanks for your impartiality

I think keeping open communication here is a great start. One of Guy's and Ellie's bigger sins (not their greatest) was that they cut off communication and moved to platforms where they could control the narrative. BF is an awesome community, but we have long memories and healthy skepticism born of experience. Keep plugged in here and maintain open lines and I think you'll see folks start to warm a bit.

 

[sdebree]

My name is Jack, I own and operate a CNC machine shop in Pennsylvania. Follow along to see how I was thrown into a controversial knife manufacturing story, and how I make it into my own knife company.

Earlier this year I was contacted by Guy, owner of Survive! Knives out of Gettysburg PA. He was hoping to subcontract some five axis grinding work to my shop. We did not have those capabilities, but I went down to Gettysburg to see if we could offer any other services. Upon arriving I had realized there was much more to the story.

Some background on Survive! Knives. This was a company that, for the last 10 years, had pre-sold knives and missed deliveries. Many customers were waiting years to get their orders. The company moved multiple times across the country, switching from OEM manufacturing to their own manufacturer in the process. This company also got their knife in the hands of some popular youtubers that more than tripled their sales. Thousands of knives were pre-sold and paid for. Survive! then tried to manufacture these knives on their own, moving from Idaho to Pennsylvania in the middle of it all. Years go by with customers still waiting for their knives, while the money went dry, lenders started knocking. This is when Guy reached out to me.

There was no feasible way for my machine shop to help Survive!, as they were beyond a capital investment being the saving grace. I made an offer on all of the machines, and in Mid 2024 had purchased all of Survive!'s equipment. This equipment included a beautiful waterjet, blanchard grinder, Haas VF2, Haas VF3, tumbler, blast cabinets, and plenty of support equipment. All of which were perfect additions to my machine shop. I then purchased a small facility, as this was too much equipment for our current location.

Now I had a ton of new equipment and a recently purchased building (that was literally falling down). We started seeing the niche that Survive! filled, and over the summer had decided to create our own knife company.

Introducing Micron Knives. I, along with my parents and two full time machinists, are going to try our hand at making high end knives! Our goal is simple. Make precise knives with the best materials and the best customer experience. We are currently prototyping and preparing for manufacturing. The last three months were spent fixing up the new (old) building. The next three months are going to be setting up the machinery and starting production. Ask me any questions you have, and follow this thread if you'd like updates!

My name is Jack, I own and operate a CNC machine shop in Pennsylvania. Follow along to see how I was thrown into a controversial knife manufacturing story, and how I make it into my own knife company.

Earlier this year I was contacted by Guy, owner of Survive! Knives out of Gettysburg PA. He was hoping to subcontract some five axis grinding work to my shop. We did not have those capabilities, but I went down to Gettysburg to see if we could offer any other services. Upon arriving I had realized there was much more to the story.

Some background on Survive! Knives. This was a company that, for the last 10 years, had pre-sold knives and missed deliveries. Many customers were waiting years to get their orders. The company moved multiple times across the country, switching from OEM manufacturing to their own manufacturer in the process. This company also got their knife in the hands of some popular youtubers that more than tripled their sales. Thousands of knives were pre-sold and paid for. Survive! then tried to manufacture these knives on their own, moving from Idaho to Pennsylvania in the middle of it all. Years go by with customers still waiting for their knives, while the money went dry, lenders started knocking. This is when Guy reached out to me.

There was no feasible way for my machine shop to help Survive!, as they were beyond a capital investment being the saving grace. I made an offer on all of the machines, and in Mid 2024 had purchased all of Survive!'s equipment. This equipment included a beautiful waterjet, blanchard grinder, Haas VF2, Haas VF3, tumbler, blast cabinets, and plenty of support equipment. All of which were perfect additions to my machine shop. I then purchased a small facility, as this was too much equipment for our current location.

Now I had a ton of new equipment and a recently purchased building (that was literally falling down). We started seeing the niche that Survive! filled, and over the summer had decided to create our own knife company.

Introducing Micron Knives. I, along with my parents and two full time machinists, are going to try our hand at making high end knives! Our goal is simple. Make precise knives with the best materials and the best customer experience. We are currently prototyping and preparing for manufacturing. The last three months were spent fixing up the new (old) building. The next three months are going to be setting up the machinery and starting production. Ask me any questions you have, and follow this thread if you'd like updates!

Hiya! Jack’s mom jumping in here to clarify some things…

He’s been working us to death!! LOL His dad and I never realized how much work we would be doing after retirement! When Jack says it’s been 3 months fixing up the new old building, you wouldn’t believe the difference we’ve made in such a short period of time. Can’t wait to get into actual production. But for now, I’ll go dispose of another load of renovation trash!!

 

[AntDog]

im weary and skeptical like the others here, but im also curious when youre gonna be operating. so i can watch and see if you're a man of your word or not.....hoping you are and not like guy.......

so how far out til models, specs and pricing info is out........also no nonsense like preorders right? you'll have product ready to ship and then sell it, correct? through dealers or direct to customers? curious on things like this......

^this. Proof’s in the pudding….