SOGfari = massive waste of money

mvyrmnd · **on:** October 12, 2012, 10:15:32 AM

I bought a SOGfari machete recently. It's a bucket of crap. Let me demonstrate by comparing it directly with a Condor El Salvador, which is excellent.

This is the result of six, 50% strength strikes of a redgum railway sleeper. Note the clean cut and zero damage on the Condor.

I've contacted SOG about the miserable quality of their product, with no response.

Don't buy a SOGfari, simple as that.

Farmman · **Reply #1 on:** October 12, 2012, 10:31:15 AM

It looks like the edge on the sog is made of cheese

Sparky415 · **Reply #2 on:** October 12, 2012, 10:32:31 AM

A bit of light stropping and it will be good as new

mvyrmnd · **Reply #3 on:** October 12, 2012, 10:33:14 AM

It feels like it, too!

enki_ck · **Reply #4 on:** October 12, 2012, 10:33:49 AM

Did someone oversleep the heat treat? That looks terrible. I still have my Tramontina machete i bought for ~ $5 some 10 years ago. Some small chips from use but great. This from a well known maker

Inexcusable

dks · **Reply #5 on:** October 12, 2012, 10:53:12 AM

Assuming you were using them both at the same time, maybe your right Arm is significantly stronger than your left...

Looks like it was not heat treated at all.. Maybe it is just for display purposes ?? ......

mvyrmnd · **Reply #6 on:** October 12, 2012, 11:00:19 AM

Nope. One after the other. Same hand.

SOG proclaim:

"Our machetes are exciting additions to the SOG family. Its not should I have a machete but which size will work for me. Machetes are one of the more useful edged tools in the world. They have cleared brush, and blazed trails, have chopped wood, made shelters, harvested crops, prepared meals, hunted and protected. Careful attention has been given to the SOGfari to make sure that the weight was right and the handles were comfortable for extended use. Whip them through the air and hear them sing. We’ve added a real working saw on the back of the blades with teeth that cut deep. Extended out of the back of the handle is a spiked tang for pounding and scraping. There are even holes in the handle to mount lanyards. SOGfari... the go to tool for survival, exploration and adventure!"

Machetes in general may have achieved these things, but I'd bet not one of them was a SOGfari. The handle is nice, but 6 strikes for a dead blade doesn't count as extended use.

enki_ck · **Reply #7 on:** October 12, 2012, 11:08:25 AM

Looks as though it's not just yours.

http://www.backcountry.com/sog-knives-sogfari-machete

dks · **Reply #8 on:** October 12, 2012, 11:08:49 AM

Quote from: mvyrmnd on October 12, 2012, 11:00:19 AM

Nope. One after the other. Same hand.

SOG proclaim:

". Whip them through the air and hear them sing. !"

Machetes in general may have achieved these things, but I'd bet not one of them was a SOGfari. The handle is nice, but 6 strikes for a dead blade doesn't count as extended use.

See, you are only supposed to cut air with them!!

mvyrmnd · **Reply #9 on:** October 12, 2012, 11:16:43 AM

Quote from: dks on October 12, 2012, 11:08:49 AM

Quote from: mvyrmnd on October 12, 2012, 11:00:19 AM
Nope. One after the other. Same hand.

SOG proclaim:

". Whip them through the air and hear them sing. !"

Machetes in general may have achieved these things, but I'd bet not one of them was a SOGfari. The handle is nice, but 6 strikes for a dead blade doesn't count as extended use.

See, you are only supposed to cut air with them!!

Maybe that's why they haven't responded to me - I've already breached the terms of use!

Syph007 · **Reply #10 on:** October 12, 2012, 12:21:42 PM

Oh boy. Ya those are made from bad china steel 3CR13 which should perform about how you discovered... badly. Condors are awesome btw, love those. I guess the lesson is to not buy a machete unless you know what steel its made of, the sites selling them probably dont say?

Mr. Whippy · **Reply #11 on:** October 12, 2012, 04:46:32 PM

Damn! Did you read the reviews on Backcountry? And SOG even had a rep in there trying to do damage control! That's one for the trashbin...

Syph007 · **Reply #12 on:** October 12, 2012, 04:48:31 PM

This one is my fav.

AimlessWanderer · **Reply #13 on:** October 12, 2012, 07:19:58 PM

So we have some that are made of cheese, and others that are made of porcelain

They're not even consistently bad

AHB · **Reply #14 on:** October 12, 2012, 08:41:22 PM

Dang, that's dissapointing..

I'm usually a huge SOG fan, but this just plain Sucks..

Maybe they should spend less money on that Gunny guy telling about how good their products are and more on actual quality..

I posted a link to this thread on their FB site asking for their thoughts and I really look forward to their reply..

Breezy12 · **Reply #15 on:** October 12, 2012, 08:53:14 PM

Quote from: AHB on October 12, 2012, 08:41:22 PM

Dang, that's dissapointing..
I'm usually a huge SOG fan, but this just plain Sucks..
Maybe they should spend less money on that Gunny guy telling about how good their products are and more on actual quality..
I posted a link to this thread on their FB site asking for their thoughts and I really look forward to their reply..

well said! I'm usually a big fan of SOG knives (love my Seal Pup Elite), but I agree that this is very disappointing, to say the least. I'll be keeping an eye on your FB post for their reply...

Syph007 · **Reply #16 on:** October 12, 2012, 08:59:26 PM

Yup I have a sog spec elite I LOVE.. but its steel was made in japan.

Steinar · **Reply #17 on:** October 12, 2012, 09:21:40 PM

Sorry about the smurfed product, but this thread made my day. Lots of my prejudices got confirmed and lots of funny pictures and comments.

mvyrmnd · **Reply #18 on:** October 12, 2012, 11:26:54 PM

I'm curious to see if they respond on Facebook, too. I'm sure they have to know the product is rubbish... They might just be covering their ears and yelling "la la la"

jekostas · **Reply #19 on:** October 13, 2012, 03:24:41 AM

Also, SOGfari? Terrible name. Terrible.

MultiMat · **Reply #20 on:** October 13, 2012, 03:54:06 AM

Well clearly people are misusing SOG's birthday cake machetes. Just don't use them on a solid chocolate mud cake ok

Ashley · **Reply #21 on:** October 13, 2012, 04:57:38 AM

Sent from Ash forum mobile

mvyrmnd · **Reply #22 on:** October 13, 2012, 07:12:08 AM

Since mine's a soft one, rather than a brittle one, I've ground the blade back to the thicker material and re-sharpened it. It can now hack through a small tree with no appreciable damage. Let's see how long it lasts...

AHB · **Reply #23 on:** October 15, 2012, 08:02:44 PM

Still no comments on their FB page.. At least they could have offered to compensate for such a crappy product.. >

Medic82 · **Reply #24 on:** October 15, 2012, 08:43:09 PM

Looks like SOG is turning out to be the new Gerber after moving production over seas and beeing sucked up into a equity firm. I am loosing more and more faith in the products that SOG is making and think they are producing way to much crap and novelty knifes. Hope that Chris@SOG is reading this so he can tell the guys running the place what they are doing.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Styerman · **Reply #25 on:** October 23, 2012, 02:07:37 AM

You guys got it all wrong , these are Airsoft Zombie Choppers .

Chris

mvyrmnd · **Reply #26 on:** October 23, 2012, 07:40:40 AM

You've just inspired me to make a new post on their facebook timeline...

I'm trying to bait them into a response, but they're just ignoring me.

Smurfing Smurfs.

jzmtl · **Reply #27 on:** October 23, 2012, 10:00:56 AM

I still can't see how is that even freakin possible, unless they skipped heat treating altogether? My $10 Coghlan's machete has chopped dry hard fencepost in below freezing without a dent (except when I missed and smacked into concrete, and that was only a few millimeter sized chips that I sharpened out pretty easily).

Can you try to bend the blade or scrape some sliver off with a utility blade and see if it's even heat treated?

AimlessWanderer · **Reply #28 on:** October 23, 2012, 10:17:20 AM

I have heard of axes developing a soft zone during tempering which needs to be sharpened away to get to the better steel. It's certainly a comment I've heard a few times on the Vaughan Mini. Mvyrmnd has said that since he reworked the blade he's had less problems, so maybe that's the cause here - the tempering of the steel after the quench effectively annealing the thinner section at the edge.

That said it's still no excuse. That's either a very clumsy heat treat sequence (over tempered), or something which should have been identified in pre-production. Easily rectified with additional grinding stock allowance, and a subsequent regrinding op to remove the soft zone leaving the exposed metal in working order. If the brittle ones were appearing before the plasticene ones the timeline would make sense.

Product goes to market
Blades under tempered
Failures occur and get reported
Tempering process duration increased on subsequent releases
Blades turned to fudge and get reported
SOG hide in the cupboard

It should have all been sorted before people start handing over hard cash

mvyrmnd · **Reply #29 on:** October 23, 2012, 11:35:45 PM

Thanks for that - it makes a lot of sense.

As a side note, they deleted my complaint post and picture from their facebook page.

This, to me, means war!

Please go and comment on my re-posting of the picture. I want to force them to aknowledge me, or the failed blade.

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SOGfari = massive waste of money

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