Bad Survive! Deserves A Permanent Post In The Hall Of Shame

From comments in video posted today:
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Customer:
Cool. So, are you going to give me my money back? I've been requesting it. I don't want a different model or mateial.

S SurviveKnives
We are still fulfilling all open orders, as they were placed. Due to things, I've already mentioned, they are just taking a little extra time to wrap up. Most everything is at the end of production now, so things are shipping out.
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Guy lies.
He says: "We are still fulfilling all open orders, as they were placed"
Not true. Orders from 2015 are not shipping before orders placed more recently.

He says: "...they are just taking a little extra time to wrap up."
Not true. 9 years is not a little extra time.

He says: "Most everything is at the end of production now..."
Not true. According to his other comments, so items are at the beginning of the process.

He says: "...so things are shipping out."
Not entirely true. Some items get shipped. Some customers continue to wait for up to 9 years for a knife.

This is the typical BS that S!K spews. And notice, Guy refuses to directly say if he will (or will not) issue a refund.
 
Interestingly enough, I take CPM steels to final dimension before HT (and I use Peters') and have not had any issues in 100's of blades to date. The only steel I use that I don't grind pre-HT is AEBL.

S90V, 3V, 20CV/M390, S110V, 10V and now 4V....not even a decarb problem or edge ripple, and those edges are between .010-.015" at the edge.

And before anyone says that is not a good practice, I talked to Brad long ago about it and he told me that it wouldn't be a problem...so far, it hasn't.
 
EngrSorenson said:
One minute his business is ruined.
The next, everything’s back on track.

Guy really needs something to level him out.
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Man, imagine thinking unironically that people who paid for knives in D3V, 3V, or even MagnaCut would be excited or interested in his thoughts on ELMAX (LOL), dude is a super cereal genius. :rolleyes: 🤣
 
EngrSorenson said:
I have a slightly different take. I think Guy believes Preorders are a legitimate business strategy. Guy has no problem letting other people front the money for his endeavor. I think Guy is stupid enough to believe the risks of his preorders falling through could be assumed by other companies. I think Guy honestly believes he’ll work his way out of this, and I think he’s too arrogant to see the writing has been on the wall for years. I think he thinks that production update data sheet is going to help in the long run.

Unpopular opinion: I honestly don’t know how much I believe Guy is an intentional fraudster. I think he’s an unbelievable idiot of the highest order who’s Mr. Magoo’ed his way into a knife business, which he has mismanaged and bungled rather predictably. If it was actual fraud, it remains unclear to me what his exit ramp was going to be.

Either way- the guy owes a bunch of people a lot of money. That fact stands.
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I would disagree, unfortunately. I think Guy is a fraudster 100%. He has seen (thanks to the fools who keep paying upfront for preorders without doing even 30 seconds of Google-fu) that bilking people out of their money is an easy affair, as long as he keeps sending a few blades to Youtubers in payment for saying nice things about him. Also, heavily editing/deleting negative commentary on the few social media outlets they control is a clear sign of a fraudster not wanting people to be aware of the extent of the issues at play. So, I just can't believe that Guy is just golly gee, a good guy who just (big air shrug) got in over his head. Just don't believe that one bit.
 
Thescrawnylumberjack said:
New video uploaded to YouTube

Showing off how nice elmax is back from HT saying these knives being easy to work with will allow them to get blades out the door which will give them capital to finish the GSO 12s.

We know since the knives are more than likely paid for it’s not generating capital for anything.
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Every single person with more than two working brain cells (and who are still allowed/able to comment under that video) should have been asking immediately "If that's true, where did the money go from all of the preorders for the GSO 12s that you raked in, you fraudulent scumbag? WHERE DID THE MONEY GO??".
 
Blues said:
Highly recommend that everyone take a few minutes and watch this video from Creely Blades...
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Awesome video, E! Thanks for sharing. I thought the comments were as insightful as the video. Good on Gary for stepping up and producing a great video - I hope more makers do the same.

El_Bribon said:
On the whole, I thought the video was pretty even-handed. But toward the end, it started to sound like a commercial for CPM. :) Two points he raised stood out to me. He mentioned Survive's tolerances on the blades may have been too tight given the nature of Magnacut, and steel in general. And the next one was the issue of pricing on the finished blades. I think Survive charges too little for the blades. I know they pride themselves on providing the best value, and that's certainly great for the consumer. However, it leaves margins so thin it requires a lot of preorders to cover whatever scrappage and other necessary expenses to run the business. The business model is not right for what he's doing.

He needs to do the following in the following order, like now:
1. Finish his backlog; if he has to take a short-term loan to cover it then do it.
2. Pare down his product line. He has too many knives that cannibalize each other's sales.
3. With the reduced product line, crank those knives out to carry a sufficient safety stock level.
4. Charge more for the knives.
5. Deliver on time, every time. This is probably the biggest one.
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There was a point in time (years ago), shortly after the writing on the wall started to manifest for me, where I was pulling for Survive to succeed. After all, should they get their heads on straight and start doing things right, that's good for their customers past, present and future. However, after years of demonstrating zero accountability and showing no demonstrable progress towards not only making their customers whole but transforming their business model to a more honest approach - yeah, I'm not interested in their success anymore.

The path towards making it right was laid out for them a long time ago. They flipped us the bird and kept on doing things their way. It feels like a company that is run by a couple that took an "Influencers 101" course in marketing and then embarked on a manufacturing effort with zero business acumen and even less when it comes to manufacturing and delivering a product. Summarized - they don't know what they hell they are doing in that space.

They do know how to gaslight, makes lots of videos, and what ASMR is - so yeah, they are influencers.

EngrSorenson said:
Guy's hunt for perfection is absolutely insane if he's going to tie his own arms behind his back like that.
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His "standards" are not commiserate with the prices he charges. That is one problem out of many that he has created for himself. What good is a "perfect" knife at a value-based price if you aren't going to be seeing that knife for years? I'd pay $500 for a perfect knife that I can get today versus paying $250 for the same knife that I'd have to wait 10 years to get.
 
Blues said:
I'm looking into it via sources who would or should know.
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I should have something for you guys shortly. I've been checking with multiple sources and didn't want to post anything prematurely.

Will be back with whatever I can report...(but without attribution unless specifically authorized.)
 
Quiet said:
The quality of "his" work? All he does is bolt handles to blade blanks made by others. He probably doesn't even cut the handle scales himself, and we all know that he doesn't make the sheaths, soooooo.....what exactly is the "quality" you speak of?
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I stopped reading your post right there - a complete waste of time to read any further.
 
I’ve never posted in this thread before but gotta say it’s been almost daily entertainment for me for years.
 
El_Bribon said:
I stopped reading your post right there - a complete waste of time.
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That’s all Guy did until supposedly 2 years ago when he started purchasing his own equipment. For the vast majority of survives existence, Guy was merely bolting parts together made by other manufactures. Survive fans even then were acting like his knives were something special when they’re literally just bolted together knife kits he sold. Now he supposedly is doing “more” of the manufacturing himself but we all see how many knives he’s actually delivering in the process. He doesn’t heat treat himself and his knives are stock removal, so I’m not sure why survive fans pretend his knives are special. I’ve owned (now sold) 2 and they’re no better finished than my white rivers. They weren’t even as comfortable in hand as the white rivers, either. Guy’s knives aren’t special and they sure as hell aren’t worth the gamble and wait. He’s not worth giving money to, most of all. He doesn’t even use delta 3v anymore which was his claim to fame. He has many outstanding orders in delta 3v but no one will get them with that ht protocol
 
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Ilikesharpstuff said:
I haven't watched today's video, but if I was a gambling man I'd wager that if Peter's said that at all, they were specifically telling Guy/Survive! not to send anymore Magnacut. I've had a heat treat company tell me they don't want to work with certain materials anymore, but they were cracking parts. Some amount of warping and surface decarburization is normal.

Leaving only .005" stock on a large, thin part (knife blank) then sending it to heat treat is a total rookie mistake. As Creely said, things are going to move during the extreme heat cycles of heat treatment. That only gives him .0025" per side to remove when it comes back and nobody should be shocked that it's not enough...I just plucked a hair from my head and it measured .0022" near the root. He's trying to cut costs by removing as much material while soft as possible and now he's finding out why that's a bad idea.
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At around 13:00 in, it sounds like he might be admitting this exactly. Didn't factor in the scrap rate and margins for error and doesn't like the outcome. He mentions Ferrum Forge and how WE Knives told them to expect a 20% loss rate of their folders due to voids.
 
craytab said:
Or, was it defending an industry leader. Also, defending all the makers who use CPM and know what they are doing. This is a point made in the video. With guy taking on this crusade, not only is he insulting the steel makers, he's also insulting everyone else who uses it. Not a great look.
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CPM doesn't need anyone to carry their water for them, they're big boys.
 
In the 2.20.2024 vid @ 14:20 Guy's say

"The decarburization problem...is clearly the liability and the fault of Peter's Heat Treat"

Who's he going to get to ht his pre-cut blanks now? 🤔
 
Antonymous said:
That’s all Guy did until supposedly 2 years ago when he started purchasing his own equipment. For the vast majority of survives existence, Guy was merely bolting parts together made by other manufactures. Survive fans even then were acting like his knives were something special when they’re literally just bolted together knife kits he sold. Now he supposedly is doing “more” of the manufacturing himself but we all see how many knives he’s actually delivering in the process. He doesn’t heat treat himself and his knives are stock removal, so I’m not sure why survive fans pretend his knives are special. I’ve owned (now sold) 2 and they’re no better finished than my white rivers. They weren’t even as comfortable in hand as the white rivers, either. White river also does their own heat treat I think. Guy’s knives aren’t special and they sure as hell aren’t worth the gamble and wait. He’s not worth giving money to, most of all. He doesn’t even use delta 3v anymore which was his claim to fame. He has many outstanding orders in delta 3v but no one will get them with that ht protocol
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I haven't had a White River knife, so I'll have to take your word for it. Based on what you wrote, would you say ESEE Knives is not a knife maker? They have their knives made by Rowen and White River (IIRC). They design them and spec them but they don't do the actual manufacturing of the knives.
 
El_Bribon said:
I haven't had a White River knife, so I'll have to take your word for it. Based on what you wrote, would you say ESEE Knives is not a knife maker? They have their knives made by Rowen and White River (IIRC). They design them and spec them but they don't do the actual manufacturing of the knives.
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Oh, so you’ve resulted to putting words in my mouth in your quest to shill for survive. Nice. I didn’t say they’re not a knife maker because they essentially sell or sold pre assembled kit knives. I said I don’t get why people act like they’re so special. People don’t act like eseee is some grail knife of unmatched quality while making excuses for the inexcusable. At least esee actually delivers their knives and I’m pretty sure they even ship next day. Crazy. At least if you had a warranty claim with esee, you can feel assured you’ll get it fixed asap. Good luck trying to warranty anything with survive.
 
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