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Bad Bud Nealy terrible work

Thomas Linton said:
"Bud began knifemaking in 1979 after a 35 year career as a musician."

So his second career has run 40 years. Time to retire?
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He started music after high school, so he started doing that at 18 years old, earliest. The dude has got to be at least 93 now...I concur with your conclusion, Thomas.
 
I saw him at a local show a few years ago, if he’s 93 he looks damn good. Late 60s early 70s tops.

Everything he had on his table was on par with what I’ve had and held. If there’s one thing I will say that I don’t like and miss is the original tang stamp.

As for sharpness, the hollow grind on my Aikuchi came shaving sharp and like the OP I enjoy sharpening, its mental therapy for me so I sharpen every knife I get to my tastes.

Musician, photographer, custom knife maker, those are some pretty impressive accomplishments.

Personally I’m sorry he didn’t make you right, that’s unusual and out of character for him. He’s always been a stand up and professional guy to deal with, always eager to please.

I’d really like to hear his side, unfortunately he’s declined to respond leaving the OPs post as the only truth. Usually it happens to makers who rise too quick and can’t keep their business models in pace with their demand. Something always suffers, usually the product or the relationship with the end users.

Sometimes it takes longer, and happens so slowly no one notices till the end. I hope this isn’t the case with Bud and next time I get him alone at a show or see him at his shop I’ll have to ask him his side.
 
Hate to see all this. Bud had a good reputation. I can't see this being a positive for him. Would be nice if he came here and gave his side of the story, but it appears that he won't. That knife is awful and not even g10 from what I can tell - looks like buffalo horn, which he seems to work with on some of his knives. He should be ashamed to send a customer a knife like that. No reason in the world he should not have offered you a full refund if you sent it back. Now with the chargeback thing on the card; it's probably passed a point of no return. He likely got ticked that you had the "gall" to do that....perhaps his head has gotten a bit too big? Not sure. It happens to makers sometimes when they become popular and been around awhile. They sometimes think they can dictate everything to buyers, change agreed prices, act like a jerk, etc. Reminds me of an issue I had with Brend years ago. Sorry OP.
 
Gastonknife said:
Hate to see all this. Bud had a good reputation. I can't see this being a positive for him. Would be nice if he came here and gave his side of the story, but it appears that he won't. That knife is awful and not even g10 from what I can tell - looks like buffalo horn, which he seems to work with on some of his knives. He should be ashamed to send a customer a knife like that. No reason in the world he should not have offered you a full refund if you sent it back. Now with the chargeback thing on the card; it's probably passed a point of no return. He likely got ticked that you had the "gall" to do that....perhaps his head has gotten a bit too big? Not sure. It happens to makers sometimes when they become popular and been around awhile. They sometimes think they can dictate everything to buyers, change agreed prices, act like a jerk, etc. Reminds me of an issue I had with Brend years ago. Sorry OP.
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Thanks guys for hearing me out. These forums really are great to help others not get screwed. But sometimes we get someone who just plain don’t care.
I plan on collecting knives for a very long time and he really just screwed me over. And all the follow up I had to do to get this completed. If anyone has any questions please pm me. I don’t spend as much time as I’d like on bladeforums but I want to answer any questions anyone might have.
Good luck guys and if any changes I will post them ASAP.
 
Gastonknife said:
Hate to see all this. Bud had a good reputation. I can't see this being a positive for him. Would be nice if he came here and gave his side of the story, but it appears that he won't. That knife is awful and not even g10 from what I can tell - looks like buffalo horn, which he seems to work with on some of his knives. He should be ashamed to send a customer a knife like that. No reason in the world he should not have offered you a full refund if you sent it back. Now with the chargeback thing on the card; it's probably passed a point of no return. He likely got ticked that you had the "gall" to do that....perhaps his head has gotten a bit too big? Not sure. It happens to makers sometimes when they become popular and been around awhile. They sometimes think they can dictate everything to buyers, change agreed prices, act like a jerk, etc. Reminds me of an issue I had with Brend years ago. Sorry OP.
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At least I got $365 back. I highly highly recommend staying away from him.
 
venom1 said:
At least I got $365 back. I highly highly recommend staying away from him.
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In your first post, you mentioned $565.00. Well, that's how I read it, anyway. Did you lose $200.00, or am I misunderstanding, your situation.

I'm glad you told your story, so others will, possibly, avoid this maker. But, seems as though, when somebody really wants something, they listen to nothing else, but their desire.

Oh well, moving right along - Happy Wednesday, everybody! Is "Humpday" supposed to matter? :p:D
 
Beak14 said:
In your first post, you mentioned $565.00. Well, that's how I read it, anyway. Did you lose $200.00, or am I misunderstanding, your situation.
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The OP put down a $200 deposit that is not being refunded to him. The $365 was the remainder of the payment that was stopped.
 
I’m very surprised by this thread. I’ve met Bud a few times at shows and owned a few of his pieces over the years.

Every knife I have handled or owned from him have been excellent and well made.

Not sure what is going on here but I do hope this is an anomaly and you get sorted out by Bud.


I’m surprised at how many posters here don’t seem to know about Bud as I consider him an extremely well established and prolific maker that got tactical knives popular along with Bob Terzuola.
 
I hope that the OP ends up getting a full refund or another knife.

Ive never owned a Nealy but have been hankering for a Bud Nealy Pesh-Kabz for years. Still do.
 
T. Erdelyi said:
He’s said to me in the past that he wished he could spend the time like he did with my knife but he had to change his process to accommodate for the volume.
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And that was the end of good knives from his shop, the second he made that decision. He should have taken the Bose approach at that point and added an extra digit to his prices instead of producing inferior work for the same price due to "volume".

Not saying Bose's knives are worth 6k, but his quality never suffered from his expanded demand as he built it. Not only did this price hike (slightly) reduce his demand pressures, he also never upped his production speed so the quality suffered. He did contract his name out to case, which can give you 80% of a bose piece for 10% of the price. Wise move to reduce the wait time and volume for his shop itself, IMO.

I don't think any good maker would ever look at their past work and say "Boy, I wish I could spend that kind of time on my knives now!" while they are charging more for lower tier work than they used to for their best effort.
Just seems wrong to me.
 
i ordered a phoenix off his website literally one year ago today
when i received it, it was okay...not sharp, plunges and grinds were far from symmetrical...pretty disappointing.

i returned it.
 
You have to call them But they will return a knife that's not custom
 
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Matthew g said:
What did you have to do to return it I got one as well my issue is the handle isn't long enough for my hand the knive Seems OK Just a to small for my hand to grip Around the handle
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I don't know what the standard procedure is around here when it comes to issues such as handle length (it's not a defect or poor work, it just isn't what you personally want). Some makers/retailers will accept returns for those kinds of reasons, others won't. Having read this thread about Mr Nealy, I doubt he'd accept returns even if it was an error on his part and not a simple mismatch between customer and product. I would probably just sell it on the secondary if you aren't able to make contact with him/get him to refund you. And it shouldn't be hard if there's no problems with it.
 
Interestingly enough, there's a multi-page article about Nealy in the April edition of Knife Magazine:

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More photos of full article: https://imgur.com/a/6cLTbSC
 
Lance Leon said:
I don't know what the standard procedure is around here when it comes to issues such as handle length (it's not a defect or poor work, it just isn't what you personally want). Some makers/retailers will accept returns for those kinds of reasons, others won't. Having read this thread about Mr Nealy, I doubt he'd accept returns even if it was an error on his part and not a simple mismatch between customer and product. I would probably just sell it on the secondary if you aren't able to make contact with him/get him to refund you. And it shouldn't be hard if there's no problems with it.
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