Pre-Ordered GSO 5.1 on May 09, 2016. Still no knife and no explanation.

LukeTheSpook said:
I'm not suggesting getting another company Involved or farming out a few steps. I mean sell the company to someone that knows how to run a business. There is 100% no argument to saying guy and crew have absolutely no idea how to run a business. Design a great product? Yes. Run a business? Big fat fail.complete with victims.
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Ironically, the fact that Survive isn't a big company was part of their original charm.
Many people decided to give Guy money knowing that he is essentially a one man shop, and knowing that his track record for delivering knives on time was poor.
Even in the face of much bad publicity Survive could sell anything they listed on their webpage, and that was after a couple of years of missed deadlines.
In that situation I have to conclude that most people don't really mind waiting if they eventually get exactly what they want, especially knowing that the knives have a strong secondary market. So while the business situation is really out of control, for a luxury item like a Survive knife the market is still surprisingly strong.
I have found that in other "craft" businesses customers will put up with a lot more when they know that the founder is directly involved, but once they sell to a corporation they lose a lot of their support. So selling Survive would probably erode support for the brand, and besides Guy would be stuck with an embarrassing tattoo. ;)
 
Fancier said:
You can tell the Bark River models by their characteristic slack belt convex grinds.
Anything with a flat grind (or primary bevel if you think in those terms) was ground by somebody else.
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Also the fact that Bark River knives like to break during use, characteristic dangerously slippery handles, and the fact that the owner will blame everyone else for anything wrong that happens.
 
Psybull said:
Other than the original 100 prototypes and a couple of 5.1s that had factory ground convex edges what other knives were made by Bark River? Wasn't the edc4 and 10 after those production wise and most of the metal work done by a different company?
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I have no idea. It was referenced earlier in the thread, and was news to me.
 
^ I think Psybull was replying to me..
Yes, I was referring to that part of the S!K history, but only in reference to the discussion which was: Have Guy design the knives (GSO - Guy Seiferd Original) and another company produce the knife, basically what Luke was suggesting and he doesn't want to understand that he's suggesting that S!K should do again...
Anyways, the way that I remember it, Guy was not happy with the final product and that's why he moved away from Barkriver. And we all remember that ambush thing :D :D...
Cheers!
 
CataD said:
^ I think Psybull was replying to me..
Yes, I was referring to that part of the S!K history, but only in reference to the discussion which was: Have Guy design the knives (GSO - Guy Seiferd Original) and another company produce the knife, basically what Luke was suggesting and he doesn't want to understand that he's suggesting that S!K should do again...
Anyways, the way that I remember it, Guy was not happy with the final product and that's why he moved away from Barkriver. And we all remember that ambush thing :D :D...
Cheers!
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Since you're going out of your way to make a statement I will respond. I understand all the different things survive used to do. I'm not suggesting the do the same thing. All of the things they've done includes guy. Guy needs to give it up, sell and let someone who knows how to manufacture a knife and run a business take it Sell the company and stay away. Guy won't be there as the common failure point and obstructionist.

It's not like they are manufacturing an aircraft carrier. Someone in China is copying it right now for $1.56 a knife and pumping out 300 a day. (I know none of us want one of those. My point is, making a knife doesn't take three years.)
 
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LukeTheSpook said:
Since you're going out of your way to make a statement I will respond. I understand all the different things survive used to do. I'm not suggesting the do the same thing. All of the things they've done includes guy. Guy needs to give it up, sell and let someone who knows how to manufacture a knife and run a business take it Sell the company and stay away. Guy won't be there as the common failure point and obstructionist.

It's not like they are manufacturing an aircraft carrier. Someone in China is copying it right now for $1.56 a knife and pumping out 300 a day. (I know none of us want one of those. My point is, making a knife doesn't take three years.)
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I suggested that very thing a couple of years ago. As usual, I got ostracized by the fan boys. Of which there are fewer and fewer it seems.
 
LukeTheSpook said:
Since you're going out of your way to make a statement I will respond. I understand all the different things survive used to do. I'm not suggesting the do the same thing. All of the things they've done includes guy. Guy needs to give it up, sell and let someone who knows how to manufacture a knife and run a business take it Sell the company and stay away. Guy won't be there as the common failure point and obstructionist.

It's not like they are manufacturing an aircraft carrier. Someone in China is copying it right now for $1.56 a knife and pumping out 300 a day. (I know none of us want one of those. My point is, making a knife doesn't take three years.)
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Luke, all due respect, but you're wrong when you say that you are not suggesting they do the same thing.
When they did the barkriver thing, Guy was involved only in the design (afaik). EVERYTHING else was handled by barkriver. I fail to understand why you can't see this. My guess is that you're so upset with S!K that you just want them gone altogether...

You are right, making A knife doesn't take years; however, making thousands of knives (in 10-12 diff patterns) with a very small team can take many years :(.

One more thing, please, I'm not defending S!K's business in any way, I'm in the same boat with many and am myself disappointed :(. Sorry if I offended you any way, it was not my intention! That said, I'm going to try to refrain from replying to this thread, I already spent more time on this than I should have..
Best!
C.
 
As I mentioned in another post it is good that there is the option of taking a refund when you get tired of waiting.
Then you leave the mental space of "Where is my knife?" and enter the space of "What should I buy instead?"
 
Fancier said:
As I mentioned in another post it is good that there is the option of taking a refund when you get tired of waiting.
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As if they have a choice. What would have happened if the did not offer a refund... I will leave this to your imagination.

I already canceled two knives and still not sure for the rest. I feel like I finally sold a losing trade - bummed but relieved. It took them few days to issue the refund but all went smooth. No complaints there. It is like I put thousands of dollars for a 3 year monthly production schedule subscription and the opportunity to enter a sweep-stake and win a knife eventually.
 
Fancier said:
As I mentioned in another post it is good that there is the option of taking a refund when you get tired of waiting.
Then you leave the mental space of "Where is my knife?" and enter the space of "What should I buy instead?"
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Except there's the little issue of cancellation fees for non-sheath knives and LARGE cancellation fees for leather sheath knives (like to the tune of 100.00). I argued heavily against my cancellation fees and made a few threats (not physical or anything, just actions I would take to resolve it in my favor since I was the one in the right here) and my fees were waived. But the fact that I was told several times I would be charged 150+ in cancellation fees after waiting almost two years made me want to scream.
 
Ended up refunding all my orders..
For me, was not about the money, I had thousands on prepaid order but was money I had long spent so not missed.. And I didn't mind waiting, I already had a large collection of gso knifes and have waiting up to a year in the past.. For me, it was not having ANY CLUE WHATSOEVER ... not even a ballpark of knowing WHEN my orders would ship.. One year? Two years? Three years? Four years? More? Unfortunately SK had completely blown any credibility whatsoever on trying to estimate based off what they say... so it left me with a lead time of "indefinite".. could be two years ... could be four.. who knows. "Indefinite" is not a timeframe I can mentally process. It's purgatory. Not knowing WHEN my order ship, not even what year-- I just couldn't mentally handle it. It's like a form of mental torture.
 
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Yep, at some point it isn't about the knives anymore and it becomes nothing but a source of frustration.
It becomes a grievance on the basis of principles that go way beyond the money involved.
It leads to feelings of anger and frustration that no longer have anything to do with wanting to own a knife.
Sometimes when you get that frustrated you just need to walk away from the situation and take a deep breath.
I agree that the restock charge was a customer relations mistake.
Given that they can pretty much sell anything that they care to post you'd think they could just chalk it up to another cost of not meeting the needs of the customer.
Many of their problems seem to stem from pricing their products low enough that demand is excessive, but Guy wants to do business that way.
I think that anybody that has spent time here in the past couple of years knows that deliveries have slowed down a lot.
For a while you could still get seconds and uglies within a few weeks, but now those are backlogged by more than a year as well.
It has been about nine months since they have taken any orders for knives, so at least the backlog isn't growing any longer.
I'm waiting to see what happens with the SK line, but it seems like they should have been shipping by now.
I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.
 
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Sad truth is they've overpromised, underdelivered, and been incredibly vague about any sort of communication along the way.

The knives are fantastic, they're very well priced...but all the fantastic well priced knives in the world don't do anyone any good if they never show up at your front door.

I hope Survive can pull it together and restructure because I really love their knives. A lot. But everything else has been a massive disappointment the last 2+ years.
 
Brummie, yeah for the progress, boo for the time frame. Congratulations on the shipping notice!
 
11B3Y said:
Dear Survive! Customer Service,

When (if ever) will you be making the GSO 5.1 knives?
It's been over TWO years. I feel like I have been hustled.

Has anyone else pre-ordered one of these knives and already received it?
I was so excited when I pre-ordered it - now it's nothing but anxiety.
Can I get a refund???

I tried to read other posts to be more positive but to be honest it just frustrates me even more.
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Same happened to me but I called them and cancelled the deal with them refunding my money.Really like the lineup but I don't want to wait for years to get them.Cheers.
 
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