Custom Order Status

 1/18/21

  The current estimated quote time for on the book orders is 8-12 months due to covid related delays, but I'm working as fast as I can to get caught up and bring the wait down! 

 

Adam, 

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May 15th, 2020                                     


    First off I hope this newsletter finds you happy and healthy!  

Although it has taken much longer to get settled in the new shop than I expected, and thus put me behind on getting the update email out as soon as I wanted, it is finally here!

  Older Prepaid Orders-  I'm about to mail out 5-6 by Monday and have an additional 14 to finish and thats it!  Currently I'm finishing 3-4 a week so not much longer.  I apologize once again for how long it has taken to finish out this list.  Trying the prepaid style customs was a mistake and one that only got more complicated when we had the issue of availability of the 52100 steel they were ordered in.  I learned a lot of hard lessons with all this and I strive every day to improve everything!  I can't thank those of you that have been patient with me enough! You will never know how much I have appreciated your kindness when I didn't deserve it.

  1/2018 Deposit Orders- Now that I have moved back to focusing on customs instead of available knives I have just about finished all of these orders.  Only two remain, because of some special material needs. 

  Nomadic Bushcrafter Orders-  Currently all carbon steel orders are done, most AEB-L orders are done with the last couple being finished in a week or so, and 3V orders are planned to be done in June. The Second round of orders are based off the current lead times and are about 5 months out.  In total if you have a custom Nomadic Bushcrafter you have one of only 30 customs that have or will ever be made!

  New custom Orders (3/30-)-  These are looking to be on track right now with the first of the O1 orders to start getting finished around mid June.  As stated in the quote 3V and AEB-L will be closer to the 6 month mark. If anything changes for the AEB-L due to the importing issues I will send out a newsletter to inform everyone and offer options to move forward, but right now things look good!



  Also stay tuned to our Instagram page to see all these orders once they are finished!


 Thank you to all of you for the continued support!!!  



From the desk of,
AA Forge Handcrafted Knives

 

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3/17/19- In my haste last month when trying to update this page I accidentally deleted all of the previous updates which has caused some confusion on why I'm even behind on the custom orders to stat with so I wanted to lay it out.

  In April 2017 I opened my custom order books using a pay up front system.  I chose this order method because in the past I had had a lot of issues and confusion using invoices after the order was done.  The idea was simple; if I stayed on track it would make things faster because it got rid of the back and forth and you simply need to wait for your knife to arrive. This was a mistake because unfortunately Murphy's law and stay on track don't mix.

  I started to ship the first orders in early July as promised, but after that we had a slight heat treat delay of about 3 weeks for the next 20.  This wasn't a big deal and I was making plans on how to get caught up in Aug. As many of you know I was using New Jersey Steel Barons 52100 as my primary steel because of some of it attributes I like slightly more than O1. Unfortunately this steel is made in Germany and when it goes out of stock it takes a long time to get back in, and this is what happed.  Early Aug. I went to place an order for the next 70 orders, but most of what I needed wasn't available.  I called to see when they would have it back in and I was promised end of Aug. to early Sep.  Knowing I couldn't get caught up as planned I updated my quote to 6-8months in early Aug.  Once early Sep. came and it wasn't back in stock I called again and was told some time in Oct. at the earliest. I ordered what they had that I needed and continued to wait (I wish I hadn't). By the end of Oct. they had no idea if it would be in by the end of the year and basically told me good luck.  At this point I knew I either needed to switch every order to O1 or close the order books. After giving it some thought and prayer I chose to close the books until it was back in.  In hind site I wish I had simply closed them instead of setting a closing date, but I can't change that now. The steel ended up not being fully stocked until March of 2018, but by this point I was working mostly with O1 to get some work done.

 The reason for the delay being more than the six months the steel was out of stock is simple, and this is something I really want to be as clear as I can on.  I have been a full-time knife maker since 2013 and making knives since 2006.  With this being my full time job, and my wife being a stay at home mom of our two boys, as well as making the mistake to use the pay up front order system, when I closed the order books I basically lost my pay check completely. Orders were how I made my living, so when the books got closed I lost my living, simple as that. At that point we had over 260 orders on the books and no income.  When the books were open I was finishing about 30-40 orders a month, but with no income I can't buy supplies to finish orders or simply pay my bills. Instead of simply throwing in the towel and applying for other jobs and letting this business I have put blood, sweat and tears into die, I decided to switch things up and try to get through the list.  I get asked all the time why I make so many available knives if I still have orders on the books and the answer is simple, with the books closed that is how I make my living now.  The 30-40 orders a month we were doing when the books were open had to be cut back to make room for available knives or nothing will get done at all. Sometimes I can't get as many orders done as I want, but we have to do what we have to to keep moving. We have been finishing 10-20 orders a month plus available knives to pay for it all since I closed the books, and we are almost done!!! 

  I know this has been a long and frustrating experience, but we are just about finished.  I have learned the hard way that relying on specialty materials and taking full payment for an order up front are no good, and I can promise everyone that I will never do it again.  I don't know what the future holds, as you can see here, but I do know that I love what I do and the hurt this has caused you guys  has hurt me more than you know. I can promise once we are through this that when ever we take orders again it will be simpler deposits only system so that no one feels cheated if life happens. 

 

Adam Gray, of AA Forge

 

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