Terrible Quality Control – Shoddy

[Albertus Vermeulen]

As a proud owner of a product that costs more than what the typical South African makes in a month a few comments.

The good or excellent:
The Vice / Clamp – Excellent.
Construction of the Vice – Excellent.

The REALLY Poor
After owning the system for 3 weeks:
The Leather is peeling from the paddle literally
The diamonds seem to lifting from the paddle there is visible movement when pressing on the edges of the diamond with the centre being glued real well. This creates a very nice belly on the diamond now.

So my Question really is, Why make a world class product and then use sticky tape and chewing gum to shoddily assemble the paddles?

This is really crap when looking at what you pay for the product and as it stands now I;ll advise anyone looking to buy the product to stay away, it is great for the first three weeks and then you are stuck with your thumb up your ass.

400 grit side is lifting at the edges – seeing this on both 100/200 and 400/600 paddles

The two strops:

Last note, Im working with the local SA Dealer but I’m dying to hear if anyone else is experiencing similar frustrations with the quality of the paddles.

Regards,
Albertus

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[Steven N. Bolin]

Welcome! Sorry to hear about you having issues right out the gate.

WEPS has outstanding customer service, arguably the best I’ve ever dealt with personally. They’ll be the ones that can and will make things right. I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone 🙂

[tcmeyer]

The tape they use is heap-big strong medicine. Ask anyone who has tried to remove a plate. I suspect something went wrong here – maybe the blocks had been stored in an unfriendly environment.

In any case, WE will quickly make things right for you. Call them on Monday and point them to your post.

[Montana Edge]

Only issue I had was my fault – I made the mistake of sliding a kang strop into the travel case when still damp from spraying… peeled up half of the leather quickly… didn’t notice until taking it out of the case later. I’d call that an unfriendly environment.

Easy to glue back down: apply adhesive, hold flat compression for awhile – and never a problem since.

The case is gathering dust because I have a permanent workstation set up. If I go mobile with the kit, the leather/balsa will go in the case dry and wrapped in plastic.

Just call WE and they’ll resolve.

[Pat]

I think it poor taste to complain here if you haven’t called WE already to express to them your problems. No product is perfect, but I measure a company by its ability to recover and make things right vs whether they were 100% out of the gate 100% of the time…God knows I am not that perfect.

Call them up, deal with them, and if they do not handle it appropriately, then perhaps report back your experience.

[Albertus Vermeulen]

Hi all,

thanks for the responses, I have no issues with customer support here and from what I have read before purchase, WE is a company that stands by its product.

– I just want to single out wepsflana here:

I think you are a wanker for not reading the ENTIRE post.I’m quoting myself here:
“Last note, Im working with the local SA Dealer but I’m dying to hear if anyone else is experiencing similar frustrations with the quality of the paddles.”

so @wepsfIana this means that I contacted the local South African Agent first and explained the issue and sent the photographs. or do I need to attach a small picture to explain the situation here, or are you still following.

In general I do not see it as being unreasonable to expect a 400 USD product not to fall apart after 3 weeks. nor do I see at as poor to taste to highlight the question on a forum such as this one.

Albert.

[tcmeyer]

No, your expectations aren’t reasonable, but your title to the thread of ” History of Terrible Quality Control – Shoddy” was more than a little over the top. I’m sorry, but I think you’re labeling the wrong fellow as the wanker here.

[Albertus Vermeulen]

@tcmeyer

Can you please re-read the topic and explain where you saw the word history in there ?

I never made an historical claim – 3 weeks is hardly history.

The topic is simply: Terrible Quality Control – Shoddy and I’m standing by the statement. as I have not had much joy from either WE or the local seller in SA yet.

When responding to a topic the heading reads: Topic History of:Terrible Quality Control – Shoddy.

Read carefully mate – it seems reading before responding is something in short supply on this forum.

All the best

[CliffCurry]

Aloha Albert,

From what I’ve seen here on the forum, when I problem pops up people usually post the issue and follow that up with a question such as “has anyone else seen this issue”. I personally have never seen this type of issue pop up on the forum so categorically I would label it under unfortunate anomaly that you just happen to draw the short straw on.

Regardless of its a more common problem or a fluke issue, without fail in ever case Ive witnessed(myself included) is the issue has been resolved in a timely, polite, courteous, an exceptional manner by the people at Wicked Edge. I would think, they in return would hope we could try to treat them with the same level of respect as well.

WE owners I believe could be some of the fussiest people on the planet(again myself included), as you can see from posts where we are discussion fractional angle variances, etc, etc…The amazing thing is the Company is listening and responds to our concerns and our feedback.This is unusual with a product(and the World in general?) , and in a very real sense we are the last line of defense for something slipping through quality control…even on a one time basis.

So lastly Id say, sorry for the bad luck and thank you for bringing it to the attention of the forums. Regardless of if its a widespread issue or not, it is something to be aware of and look out for in the future.

~Cliff

[Albertus Vermeulen]

Hi Cliff,

I Agree with everything you said fully, Making this sort of investment in terms of South African Rand to the US Dollar made this purchase quite expensive, add on top of that customs duties and taxes and a 400 odd USD purchase becomes 600 or even 700 very quickly.

I did a lot of research and WE customer service came out tops every time on all discussions and forums.

I will admit that I’m brash and I have never in my life sugar coated anything nor will I ever, I get paid for my expertise and my opinion not my ability to sugar coat a crappy situation so I call it as I see it.

My main point of irritation on a forum like this enters when individuals jump on a band wagon and make a statement or form a conclusion by only reading some of the post and not all of the post or pulling outlandish claims out of thin air – History ?? anyone.

I would love to get the issue resolved, as movement on a diamond plate kind of takes the precision out of the product name.

As the managing partner of a Services Company, I’m painfully aware of customer satisfaction and quality control. I do not lie awake at night about the 99 products that I ship faultless because my QC is working, I lie awake at night worrying about the 1 that my QC is missing, and this seems to be the case here.

Regardless of how something like this happens, I stand by the fact that I did not buy a gatco for a few dollars here, I’m expecting a solid product with solid backing for the price paid.

I would love to hear someone from WE chiming in.

Anyway – I have my own customers that is waiting.

All the best

[Pat]

Regarding below, fair enough and I didn’t see that part. Glad you are working with them; however, I am not sure that will be your quickest remedy vs contacting WE themselves.

Additionally, what came off as very objectionable is the following:
“This is really crap when looking at what you pay for the product and as it stands now I;ll advise anyone looking to buy the product to stay away, it is great for the first three weeks and then you are stuck with your thumb up your ass.”

There is just no need for that type of vitriol, especially when you do not have an answer back from the company yet

Hope that clarifies.

so @wepsfIana this means that I contacted the local South African Agent first and explained the issue and sent the photographs. or do I need to attach a small picture to explain the situation here, or are you still following.

In general I do not see it as being unreasonable to expect a 400 USD product not to fall apart after 3 weeks. nor do I see at as poor to taste to highlight the question on a forum such as this one.

Albert.

[Daniel maloon]

There’s nothing wrong with venting your frustration on this forum. You’re not the first to do it and won’t be the last. There have been problems that folks have brought up over the years ranging from slop in the guide rods, bent diamond stones, diamond stones not fully coated, cracked ceramics, problem strops to a new vise that comes a little bent. The list goes on. I completely understand being upset about spending that amount of money on a product that appears to fall apart so quickly. I did notice a bit of bandwagon bashing which is a first that I’ve seen for this forum. Its not like that here which is why many people choose to keep coming back. I’d say to message Clay directly if your dealer isn’t providing you with a solution

[Albertus Vermeulen]

Hi wepsflana,

Vitriol ? I do not deal in vitriol. I pointed out the low blows already – they came from this forum, not me.

if you feel that it was harsh lets look at the facts, Ill try to sugar coat it so that I do not offend anyone.

Ill keep the numbers round

Fact 1 Spent $400 on a wicked edge
Fact 2 Sharpened 2 Knives
Fact 3 This equates to a cost of $200 per knife sharpened when the paddles came apart. (on any return on investment this is shocking)
Fact 4 I will make sure my voice is heard when someone asks about the wicked edge and what I currently think of it.
Fact 5 A whole work day is now almost done in SA – no response from the local reseller. (WE own team is not doing themselves any favours here)

Some other interesting Facts

Fact 6: I Live in South Africa, where we are blessed with many things but, a good postal system is not one of them, just quickly sending a defective part back is not an option, it will cost me at least another $65 – $75 (budget around $100) to ship to the US.

Fact 7: Sometimes the postal workers strike for 3+ months – that means everything shipped stands still, gets pillaged or stolen in a postal warehouse.

Fact 8: Round trip i’m looking at the very best at 2 – 3 months, at worst 6+ months to get this resolved, now this is Africa after all so I don’t expect miracles, but, I’m not in the mood to spend any more money on an already very expensive piece kit to get what I was promised when i bought it.

So yes, I’m really pissed off, and I will state again, it is crap that you buy a $400 product and after three weeks things come apart and I will put my head on a block to state that if you were stuck in this situation you too will feel you are stuck with your thumb up your ass.

Have a good one.

[Gib Curry]

Have you called Wicked Edge yet? (Not your local dealer, Wicked Edge?)

From https://www.wickededgeusa.com/contact-us/

Wicked Edge
3 Caliente Rd., Suite 8
Santa Fe, NM 87508

877-616-9911 (It appears, in my browser, that you can use Skype to call them free.)

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Let us know how that goes.

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For Now,

Gib

Φ

"Everyday edge for the bevel headed"

"Things work out best for those who make the best out of the way things work out."

[tcmeyer]

I would hope that the dealer in South Africa would have some inventory and that Wicked Edge would direct him to make the situation right by replacing the defective parts out of his inventory. That’s why manufacturers have dealers in international markets. The dealer should be taking care of all the warranty, tariff and shipping issues. In such situations, the customer should expect to be treated as if he were located in Arizona. Yes, he should expect longer shipping times, but I would expect that he paid the dealer the premium for the transatlantic shipping costs already.

Just to be clear, if a customer in a country without a dealer buys a product from the US, for example, he should expect to pay the shipping costs on all replacement parts. It isn’t the manufacturer’s fault that the buyer lives half-way around the world. This is an excellent example of why. The shipping costs are almost as much as the part itself. In most cases where there is no refurbish value in the failed part, the dealers don’t usually require return shipment.

Please be acutely aware that this is strictly the opinion of another customer, not necessarily the position of Wicked Edge.

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