*Opinions Needed* ADV Midtech Butcher + Mini Butcher + Andre De Villier

B

BrolyJr

Joined
Nov 7, 2012
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Does anyone have a mini Butcher yet? I am considering getting one because I felt the 3.5" Butcher was too big for my EDC. Here are a few questions for those who have the 3.5" Butcher, how does the blade hold up in EDC tasks? Any particular tasks that it is good at or bad at? How is the break-in period? Is it difficult to take apart, lube, and putting it back together? I have read the Bladeforums post on Andre De Villiers actions towards a few of his customers; how was your experience with him? So far he has been very helpful and answered every question and request I have thrown at him. I have not paid him through Paypal yet but I did ask him to put me on hold for the Mini as I am deciding whether or not I still want to purchase from him. I love the knife and I do not want to miss out because of some nasty rumors of the maker. Please give me your opinion on the Knife and Maker, even if you are not a owner of the knife how do you feel about the maker?
 
I am having an issue myself but it is through no fault of Andres. I was one of the people who had their knives put on hold at the South African post office due to the strike, my knife has been sitting there for the past month+ with no real end in sight. In my experience he is a nice man who does not have the most organized business, his correspondance skills are severley lacking which causes miscommunication. I dont think he is a shady person and i find that to be slanderous. You can add him on Facebook and see daily, all of the people that are satisfied with him. He has a better shipping service now so it is a very short wait if he has the knife already made. He is not a bad person he just needs to work on the business end. I would add him and see for yourself instead of taking advice from someone with such an extreme viewpoint of the man.
 
I had the full polished titanium scale of the full butcher. Its a beast of a knife. carried it a few times. bulky and heavy. Flipped very well, was centered. didnt do any hard cutting with it. Had a hell of a time selling mine due to the negative feed back on a thread listed above. I paid $450 and wouldnt pay a dime more. More of a special occassion knife in my opinion. Not much of a practical EDC.
 
RobertA.R said:
I am having an issue myself but it is through no fault of Andres. I was one of the people who had their knives put on hold at the South African post office due to the strike, my knife has been sitting there for the past month+ with no real end in sight. In my experience he is a nice man who does not have the most organized business, his correspondance skills are severley lacking which causes miscommunication. I dont think he is a shady person and i find that to be slanderous. You can add him on Facebook and see daily, all of the people that are satisfied with him. He has a better shipping service now so it is a very short wait if he has the knife already made. He is not a bad person he just needs to work on the business end. I would add him and see for yourself instead of taking advice from someone with such an extreme viewpoint of the man.
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Extreme viewpoint? It's a first hand account. It's slanderous to give someone a link to what someone else's experience is? Really?
You do realize that if someone posts something bad about you on your Facebook page, you can delete the comments right? I find that ignoring that glaring fact is downright ignorant and the very definition of carelessness. Your contradictory post aside, ignoring the experiences of other people should be done at one's own peril. Extreme? No, I'd call it practical.
 
I meant that it was slanderous to call him shady, i do not think he has shown that he has malicious intent. This guy had a realllly bad experience, some people have reallllly good ones. I was saying its probably best to weigh them against each other. And i agreed with the guy that he is bad at the business end which i think is his main problem, i dont think it is done out of malice. Relax, no need to get so fired up i was not insulting anybody, and i was not referncing you at all for posting the link.
 
Robert, The new trend is when people fail traditional methods of doing business, they go the route of Instagram, Facebook, and other social media. That gives them total control over any feedback, deleting the bad and leaving only the good. There are some well known "makers" that have failed miserably to deliver products on time, as described, and exhibit the same issues with communication. They have been run out of all the forums so they thrive on social media, where they have absolute and total control of any and all comments on their channels. I didn't say the same about ADV, only spreading a word of caution for the new guys. No perceived insults or badness here. If you read as many feedback threads as I have, you might be a bit more understanding of these matters. If the OP continues, I hope it works out and things go smoothly. Carry on.
 
I will chime in here with some useful feedback for everybody on both the OP's questions, as well as the other things that were brought up. Keep in mind that I am a direct dealer for Andre, but he is just one of the many makers I work with. I am in no way affiliated with ADV outside of retailing the companies products. We take all noted experiences from customers with makers we deal with very seriously. As a business, we want to work with stand up folks with a strong character.

So, to answer your first set of questions:

How does the blade hold up in EDC tasks?

In my experience, it is excellent. I carry a 3.5" Butcher with the blackout finish on both the blade and the Ti. I have done the standard amount of EDC tasks like box opening and food prep, as well as some light wood splitting for kindling. When I say "light", I mean shaving wood and light carving. I am not one to baton or use a folder as a pry bar. Edge retention is good and the powder coated finish is holding up well.

Any particular tasks that it is good at or bad at?

I think the blade will handle anything you throw at it within the limitations of it's blade shape.

How is the break-in period? Is it difficult to take apart, lube, and putting it back together?

The prototypes (first 100) and some of the gen 2's had some issues with loosening pivots and backspacer screws. Andre has made necessary adjustments on proceeding runs. The Butcher I EDC is a Gen two. I pulled it apart and cleaned up some of the factory grease in the pivot area. I reassembled with blue loctite on all screws and pivot. This was several months ago and nothing has budged. I believe the newest generation is gtg in this department. To answer your questions about ease of disassembley, I find it very simple and straight forward. All you need is a T6 and a T20 torx bit. The knife rides on cages roller bearings. I have disassembled several butchers for some custom anodizing and its a breeze. As far as breaking in, mine just keeps getting smoother. Lockup has not budged. Like may Ti framelocks, the lock was a tad sticky when new. It is now smooth as silk.

As far as the Mini, I have not handled one yet, but I have a batch coming in this week so I can update you with my impressions when I get one in my hands. Feel free to email me at tony@bladecousa.com with any other questions.


Regarding the "shady practice" thread referred to above.........

I can only vouch for Andre with my own experiences and the experiences of my customers. My personal dealings with Andre have been positive. He responds quickly to inquiries and other correspondence. I have met him in person and he is a nice guy. I have yet to have anyone contact me with an issue regarding him or his CS. And for the record, I invite anyone to contact me if you have an issue with a Butcher. Even if you didn't buy the knife from us. We really do take great pride in the products we choose to sell and are more than willing to help folks out when we can. We are a small business and we take the reputations of our suppliers very seriously.

-Tony
 
FWIW, I have one of the original run and the backspacer screws loosening were really annoying. I made a youtube video about it and a bunch of fanboys jumped down my throat, so I removed it.

My Butcher does have some lock slip now, which I'm not particularly eager to pay $30 to ship it back to SA and then have it sit in limbo forever while their postal services is on strike.

Also, I would like to point out that his "service rep" in the US, the one who was on here defending him, took 13 days to respond to my initial request of what I should do with my faulty knife, and then failed to get back to me at all after that. Also, I requested new body screws from him because one of mine stripped quite easily and they were never sent to me.

bladeco said:
I invite anyone to contact me if you have an issue with a Butcher. Even if you didn't buy the knife from us. We really do take great pride in the products we choose to sell and are more than willing to help folks out when we can. We are a small business and we take the reputations of our suppliers very seriously.

-Tony
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Do you mind if I contact you regarding my issues?
 
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I've had GREAT luck dealing with Andre directly and have LOVED my mini butcher so far. So much in fact, that now I'm searching to find a matching satin/grey full size butcher as well.

Mini Butcher is a great knife, and actually much smaller than I expected.
 
"ignoring the experiences of other people should be done at one's own peril."
-RevDevil

Some people choose to ignore the experiences of the vast majority, and in this case the vast majority of people have had good experiences. Some people people choose to ignore the bad experiences reported by a small number of people. I'm curious RevDevil, why don't you take your own advice and stop ignoring all of the positive experiences regarding ADV? It seems strange that you would side with such a small minority on a customer service issue like this. There are always outliers, and you can never be sure of the motives of a disgruntled customer. In my humble opinion ADV makes great knives, and while there are some inherent risks involved with buying things from overseas, you should buy with confidence knowing that ADV is not ripping people off as a select few would have you believe.
 
I agree that it would be flawed to trust social media as a reference source, since experiences will almost always be skewed positive. As a result, I tend to put more stock in the negative reviews as a precaution. 100,000 positive reviews will not make up for the one bad experience if I'm the one that falls in that circumstance.

That said, YMMV on dealing with anyone... If you are aware of the risks and find them acceptable you take a chance regardless, sometimes it works/ other times not so much
 
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