Right you are, Down Under it is.
Southern California has remained a dream only. Picked up my first real bits of English (I am swiss by birth) as a traveller working the Date Palms in Israel sharing time with a guy from San Diego, loved listening to his stories.
All the songs I've heard about California started to create a real picture in my head. All that some 30 years ago.
Cheers

Hmm, rather than start a new thread for the express purpose of whining about my as-of-yet-unarrived DMDC, I figured I'd just post here. For those of you still waiting, are you also a bit unnerved at the sight off these new releases when we STILL haven't gotten our knives? I mean, prepping for blade-show is one thing (I can understand that its a huge profit for them), but giving the show priority is still putting profits ahead of customer satisfaction (which goes against every reason why someone would choose to buy from a small business). Oh well, I guess thats capitalism for you. Anyway, I've heard from the big dog that we should be getting them soon, but its still kinda freak'n me out.

i don't know... I really like both Dan and Patti personally, as well as Scrap Yard knives, but when you order something and then are left waiting... wow, almost three months now? Its just... difficult


anyway, hope I didn't cross the line with any of that, just stating facts as I see them <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Used to, people waited 6+ months for orders from the Swamp.

See, not to rebel against my elders or anything, but I don't really accept that. If I were waiting for a Busse or custom knife, I'd be okay with it. But I'm not. I'm waiting for an admittedly top-of-the-line semi-production knife. When I ordered my knife, most people expected them in 10 days and received them in about that amount of time. There's really no reason why it should take this long, especially considering that there has been plenty of time for them to design and realize two new knives. I know how much you all hate it when people say "I'll take my business elsewhere", so I won't use that line and i don't plan to actually do any such thing, but you have to imagine what this kind of experience would do to someone who isn't as loyal as I am. I mean, heck, Justin at Ranger Knives has a much smaller shop and made my custom RD7 in three weeks. Personally, I think they should say on their website: "expect long delays in shipping" and provide a lot more information throughout the process. I don't want to spark an arguement here, but I think if you take your (and my) affection for scrapyard knives and their personnel out of the picture and look at this objectively, you'll see that things aren't perfect. Not bad, but also not perfect

I hope no one takes this personally, I love you all! But in the same way you all talk about "back in the day", I'm trying to give you a perspective from a new customer's standpoint.

cloak, you're 100% right. you have nothing to apologize for and no reason to be so soft and forgiving with your words other than your good character. there is no excuse for this, those knives have simply been put on the back burner and it is bad business, plain and simple.

Cloak, Magnum, it gives me no pleasure to agree with you. But I do. It’s true that Scrap Yard Knives is a small business using an eccentric business model. It’s true that moving from one state to another merits cutting Dan some slack. But putting the DMDCs on indefinite hold while releasing two new models is just not okay. Abusing knives is one thing. Abusing your loyal customer base is something else.

I’ve read complaints on BladeForum about unanswered emails and difficulties doing business with the Yard. “It looks like they make good knives, but I can’t be bothered dealing with them until they get their act together.” At this point it’s hard to defend the Yard. It feels rather like defending a dysfunctional family.

I hope this doesn’t come across as a flame. I write it because somebody needs to. If nobody points out the problems, there is no incentive to fix them.

Scrapyard is a growing small business and like all growing small businesses is going through a period of growing pains. I won't defend the position of new knives versus fulfilling pending orders because it's hard to justify. However, I can understand how a shift of priorities at the Wauseon factory could cause something like this to occur. This is something Dan will have to manage with his brother. Being co-located at the Wauseon factory has to be a better environment for managing production priorities than trying to do so remotely from Houston. Dan's a bright guy and I'm optimistic that this situation will fix itself in due course.

On the positive side, Dan has been listening the Yard's pleas for some smaller knives and has responded with some nice new products for us. Though the timing of the new releases is somewhat awkward, good things are indeed happening.

At the end of the day each of us has to take measure of our own patience. There are many, many knives and knifemakers that we can spend our money with if we truly want/need to purchase a knife right away.

the hierarchy doesn't really apply to this case. these knives were available, sold, and remain unshipped. i've been told to accept flaws because "that's just the way we are" before and i know you don't believe that's a good excuse. being "said before" makes no difference when latency itself is the problem. the longer it takes, the bigger the problem, and the more should be said.

I'm not whining because i want my knife. i ordered two on proxy and none for myself. from the beginning of this thread i was trying to offer comfort and assurance to those who had issues with their order and i now feel that the threshold has been crossed, enough's enough, and they should be upset. busse combat doesn't do business this way. a ganza, in which two people manually sort through a flood of e-mails, respond individually, bill individually by phone, and then mail them, should not have been completed from start to finish in a fraction of the time it took to get those DCDM's out.