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

[Rupestris]

For those just joining us, let me sum up the past 10 pages.

 

[scarysamcary]

Posting for the sake of posting is disingenuous.

yet here you are, still talking and still saying nothing.

 

[PirateSeulb]

There's a lot of very specific forums I can't exactly jump into. What traditional knife am I carrying today? None, just a SOG pent arc. What's my cold steel EDC today? None. Posting for the sake of posting is disingenuous. I'm looking around soaking up the ambiance, relax.

You posted in the "What does your bladeforums username mean?" thread with a mostly hollow post quoted below and didn't share your names meaning, which maybe is because the meaning has to do with you being here solely for this thread.

Nice dude. You guys are miracle workers.

 

[Quiet]

You posted in the "What does your bladeforums username mean?" thread with a mostly hollow post quoted below and didn't share your names meaning, which maybe is because the meaning has to do with you being here solely for this thread.

Well, I mean what was he supposed to say? “I’m an abject testament to the fact that Survive?Knives DOES ship knives to some people!” Can you imagine the boos on that stinker?

 

[AbjectTestament]

unless he wants to come to W&C and we can have some real fun....

You kind of remind me a little of Chester from those Chester and Spike cartoons.

I like your idea though, I'll take you up on that. Got a thread in particular in mind to join you?

You posted in the "What does your bladeforums username mean?" thread with a mostly hollow post quoted below and didn't share your names meaning, which maybe is because the meaning has to do with you being here solely for this thread.

I complimented a service member who in my opinion is in a very demanding trade and think they work miracles with vehicles. I also think they're highly underappreciated. I didn't post my username meaning because my post wasn't about me.

 

[Danke42]

Been quiet around here. Probably time for Survive Fan-Boy post to get the blood boiling.

So I'm posting this primarily for people who are waiting on knives from survive or considering ordering them in the future.

I'm biased, I've had excellent communication with Survive, great customer service and I just really like Guy and Ellie (chatted a few times).

I've read this entire thread and I'm very cognizant of the issues people have had with Survive. They're legitimate issues, full stop.

I have a previous order from survive and some eBay purchases. I'm not sure why their blades are so expensive on eBay but some of them are almost selling twice the MSRP.

My latest order was placed around February or March of this year and I just got a shipping confirmation last week.

I'm definitely not one of those dudes who's cool with waiting years for a knife. I picked one that had a 4-month shipping warning (I spoke with Guy on the phone and he warned me it would be a few months longer) and watched it like a hawk. I had a cut-off date in mind when I would pull the trigger on a refund. Luckily for me, it was just a few months late. It's annoying and not something I normally accept but in the case of Guy's knives I personally think they're perfect (for me) sSoo I accepted that trade-off.

Guy and Survive have been working on their transparency and posting a lot of updates and videos of their shop. They seem to be getting their shit together and their shop in order. A 7-8 month wait for a knife, to me, is nuts but better than the stories I've heard of people waiting years.

I was given one of their famous "it's shipping in a week" lines when I checked in with them. It didn't ship. I checked in and was told there was an issue with shealth clips that would be there in a few days. After reading this thread in its entirety I thought bull fucking shit and thought I was being given a line. 3 days later I noticed they posted a picture of the sheath clips they were waiting on. A week or so later and I got the shipping alert.

I'm abjectly hopeful for the future of the company. Really hoping they're in a place to catch up on their previous orders (for all of you dudes waiting on blades) and move forward with new stuff. I'm going to risk pre-ordering a few more blades from them for myself and I'm looking at putting together a group order for work for about 70 blades. I'm not suggesting any sort of absolution for their past history or issues, just giving an account of a recent order.

So here's the deal. You're pretending that someone will take this at face value and thing "good news they're shipping knives". But we all know that is a flat out lie.

This has been a common move with Guy and Ellie for years now to slide a knife out the back door to a shill who can try to tell everyone it's all good news.

We know it's now true. If they really cared about delivering knives to their customs they would be making right all the people ahead of you in line. You crowing about how you got a knife ahead of those customers who've been waiting just flags you as another teacher's pet and continues to underline how slimy they.

Honestly Guy should have just stuck to burglarizing gun stores. The odds for that are prety good that he would have been eventually successful.

 

[PirateSeulb]

You kind of remind me a little of Chester from those Chester and Spike cartoons.

I like your idea though, I'll take you up on that. Got a thread in particular in mind to join you?

I complimented a service member who in my opinion is in a very demanding trade and think they work miracles with vehicles. I also think they're highly underappreciated. I didn't post my username meaning because my post wasn't about me.

My main point is that you talk about lack of opportunity yet you passed over an opportunity. In a thread like that it is ok to say "Hey thanks for your service your a hero... btw here is my story" so when you motives are suspect and you make claims of missing opportunity to participate yet pass them up it only adds to the suspect nature of your motives.

 

[Sagemode]

I have been lied to many times by them and did contact them to see if they would make things right. They said they would have X by Christmas so I said contact me and if you can do it I will tell folks you have kept your word. I have not been their biggest fan for sure and nobody would call me a shill for them. Guess what they could not honor that deal. It was send money in and wait for the best knife in the world and we won't do you wrong again. It was a no to being charged a fee for vaporware if I asked for a refund. They talk a good talk but I am done with believing anything they say. Heck they had a deal one time where if you guess the blade steel you would get a free knife and I would have been right but I just didn't trust them enough to engage them. When the regular consumer don't trust you at all that is not good for business. For the sake of people waiting on their orders I hope you get them. I placed an order in May 2016 for a GSO 5.1 and they are not done yet. That is 5 1/2 years for a knife order and that is a FACT come Nov.

 

[Citori]

Earlier in this thread I posted that I know a guy with a TSK on order with Survive. Based on their current commitment, today (10.31.21) is when his knife will ship. Does anyone think they'll meet that?



The timeline on this thing is that he ordered it in the spring of 2020:

Estimated completion was July 2020. Perfectly clear that that was an estimate so missing it by a bit would have been understandable. It did not ship in July and no one from Survive provided an update directly to the customer.


According to the Wayback machine they did update their "Production Schedule" page:

So the estimate was revised to August delivery which was pretty encouraging. They didn't note August of what year but that was probably not intentional? Anyway they missed that, just gave up trying to put a month to it, and the October version of their "schedule" struck that verbiage:

No ship date, but "more quickly" was at least a little encouraging. At some point a few months ago they updated their "schedule" to this:

Queue-wise these knives are "At Final Machining. Shipping in 1 to 3 months" on the last day of the month they were planning to ship, which is a Sunday and Halloween and I suspect that reduces the chance they'll meet this 3rd+ revision. The group of knives above these are "In Finishing" so presumably the TSKs have to move to that step before they go out.


This company has gone through multiple "turnarounds" and attempts to get things back on track, but not only are they still repeatedly failing to meet their commitments, they can't even come close.

 

[Elgatodeacero]

The shamelessness of it all is impressive.

 

[craytab]

It has been said before but I'll repeat it again, if these "guys" would spend as much time learning to and eventually making knives, as they do crafting elaborate excuses, they'd at least be caught up. But doing things the right way doesn't pay as well I guess....

 

[Sagemode]

The reason Survive does not face the wrath of LEO is because they offer refunds. The FTC and others know about them for sure but if you have communications on them they ask you the number one question "Did you ask for your money back"? If you say NO then they will tell you to do so and if they don't then follow up with your paypal ect. to get your funds back. As far as to sue them you have to find a lawyer willing to do so. They hide behind words like expected, should, and by some chance they say will they have a mishap and change the wording to notify people of setbacks. Have you seen any updates on setbacks? Now you know why they do it . In their General Contract to do business: They claim their is not a certain date of delivery and in fact they reserve the right not to make the blade or even ship it to you in your life time. If you see a box that says several months to ship when you dig deeper it goes to we don't have a certain date again. Ellie will be the first to point this out when people complain about missed dates. People are like look they are being upfront now and showing videos and giving more updates on why things go wrong but after thinking it out in my opinion this is a legal tactic for something more sinister.

 

[tinfoil hat timmy]

 

[mlmcasual]

The reason Survive does not face the wrath of LEO is because they offer refunds. The FTC and others know about them for sure but if you have communications on them they ask you the number one question "Did you ask for your money back"? If you say NO then they will tell you to do so and if they don't then follow up with your paypal ect. to get your funds back. As far as to sue them you have to find a lawyer willing to do so. They hide behind words like expected, should, and by some chance they say will they have a mishap and change the wording to notify people of setbacks. Have you seen any updates on setbacks? Now you know why they do it . In their General Contract to do business: They claim their is not a certain date of delivery and in fact they reserve the right not to make the blade or even ship it to you in your life time. If you see a box that says several months to ship when you dig deeper it goes to we don't have a certain date again. Ellie will be the first to point this out when people complain about missed dates. People are like look they are being upfront now and showing videos and giving more updates on why things go wrong but after thinking it out in my opinion this is a legal tactic for something more sinister.

Exactly. Also given the fact, to be frank, the US is not exactly a bastion of law and order the past few years.

 

[bikerector]

Actually curious on this one, do they actually use the steel they say they do? If a knife says 3V, is it even 3V or do they cut corners there too? I won't own one to test it myself but I know a friend that wasn't privy to the shadyness of Survive and ended up with one during a trade. He doesn't use it as he tends to only use a few knives and collects or trades around the rest.

 

[Sagemode]

Actually curious on this one, do they actually use the steel they say they do? If a knife says 3V, is it even 3V or do they cut corners there too? I won't own one to test it myself but I know a friend that wasn't privy to the shadyness of Survive and ended up with one during a trade. He doesn't use it as he tends to only use a few knives and collects or trades around the rest.

Good question but I am not able to tell what it is. I have found that many wanted to beat the knife through a log or nail and the edge is lacking for sure and it is the wedge that does the work. I have 3 of their blades from days of way back. I was interested in getting a new one to compare with the old as now they are suppose to be regular 3V. I don't use their knife enough because it lacks in the #1 area and that is cutting. They suck at any job requiring fine edge work. They are pry bars with an edge and they throw out the term survival. This month would be the 5 1/2 year mark on the order for the GSO 5.1 and yes I cancelled but they have not even started shipping yet. NO WAY they will be done by Christmas and they know once that deal line is not met they will move on to 1st of next quarter of the new year and so on. They had a video where they had a 1000 knife blanks in and let me say they took in way more than that in orders. Lets say they have to do a 1000 by the end of the year that is almost 20 a day sharpened, handles, and sheaths. Let them post a video of making one knife in real time.

 

[tinfoil hat timmy]

"Posting live footage of us actually assembling knives and fulfilling orders in real time would take away from our ability to control quality. We need to be able to fuck up so that we can sell seconds to people who havent pre ordered the knives we cant show footage of us completing."

-Someone at SURVIVE¡ maybe probably

 

[dogboye]

I don't use their knife enough because it lacks in the #1 area and that is cutting. They suck at any job requiring fine edge work. They are pry bars with an edge and they throw out the term survival.

Are we even talking about the same knife company/knives? The one thing I'll give S!K blades is they will cut like crazy. Thin edges, and very sharp. I'm not going to say they STAY sharp as long as I'd hoped (especially considering the hype of 3V), but they COME sharp, and definitely not pry bars with edges. Not any of the ones I've gotten.

 

[EngrSorenson]

You know them as an estimated percentage of total product, but even knowing that you'd have to be much more precise to know which ones will still be saleable at all and the smaller number of total units you produce the more inaccurate your estimates would become. Maybe I'm wildly wrong, but I sincerely doubt that Survive is big enough to predict their rate of flawed, but saleable blades with the kind of accuracy they would need to justify pre-selling seconds.

I know this was from a while back, but I thought it was a great point.

Statistics requires many data points. "Data Points" for Survive knives means produced knives.
Survive knives doesn't have enough data points. (ooooooh, transitive property burn!)

They've changed their suppliers and their production around enough such that the few data points they do have can't possibly represent current production processes.
There's no way that pre-sales of factory seconds is reliably data-based.

 

[Insipid Moniker]

I know this was from a while back, but I thought it was a great point.

Statistics requires many data points. "Data Points" for Survive knives means produced knives.
Survive knives doesn't have enough data points. (ooooooh, transitive property burn!)

They've changed their suppliers and their production around enough such that the few data points they do have can't possibly represent current production processes.
There's no way that pre-sales of factory seconds is reliably data-based.

Another piece of the puzzle is that looking at the normalized percentage of product that's cosmetically flawed is usually pretty deceptive. Errors and such don't really happen at a uniform rate, because they often are caused by something external. Maybe you're buffing the blades and don't notice some metal fragments on your tools. That's going to make a lot more 'seconds' in that one instance than you'll normally see for a long time. Or if someone shaping scales tied one on last night and came in hung over, same thing. Heck, in a company as small as Survive it could just be someone having a particularly bad day. Now, again, if you're a very large company making literal tons of product even those will even out, but Survive is nowhere near that large, so we could reasonably assume that what you would get would be long periods with extremely few seconds with rare instances where they suddenly have many more. That would make it just about impossible to offer pre-orders on them.