how's it going guys and welcome to our spectacular knife weekend right now we
are going to sit down and look at five of the hottest protec knives that you
can get right now and we've got Dave Wattenberg the man himself how's it
going Dave exact great how are you dude so good it's good to at least see you
even if we're not in the same room yes yes a missing you in person but this will
do for sure this'll do so out o these five hot knives that we have I'm gonna just
start with the one I know everybody wants to see and that is another
operator knife from you guys so tell us a little bit about this thing yeah so
years ago we had a special group of knives that we did for an elite unit
some operators in fact and ever since then we've tried to come up with a way
that we could have these you know in a commercial setting where you know other
folks could get a hold of it we've partnered with a company that's handling
the tritium vials for us that's a fully NRC nuclear regulatory commission
approved processor so it's a really neat knife and all black sterile tritium
push-button we're gonna take this operator series and push it through
different models we started with the sng strider now the TR 3s you'll see some TR
fours godfathers godson's eventually you know through the line. cool any SBR's in
the works there? you know we may have to sneak that one in too yeah I've been
carrying that SBR you gave me a shot a lot and I loved it more and more every
day so I'm glad to hear maybe I could get an operator one great knife yeah we
have a new production run of SPR's that we're in process on now those
should start back in stock pretty soon cool yeah and then for you
guys at home if you haven't seen like a regular pro tech and this isn't
necessarily regular one but we're gonna get to this one too but you can see just
just on the the blade profiling there at home you guys can see how the how this
operator one differs in many ways but no signposting on the blade which is pretty
yeah so anyways yeah one of my favorite things about that operator series a
number of people have mentioned that when you pick it up and you push the
button you feel the snap you know it's a pro-tech
you don't necessarily need to see the name on there at all which is a really
cool byproduct of the operator series and the tr3 and these other knives that
we're putting it on inflicting that treatment to they're they're pretty
recognizable it makes me really happy that when people see it they already
know it's the tr3 yeah I mean that's the that's the symbol of great design right
is that you know what it is without the logo on it right and that's protein
cousin spades for sure love it now kind of going outside of the realm of autos
though but a knife that has been hugely popular lately we'll get some Malibu's
that are gonna be dropping here real soon yeah yeah the Malibu is a knife
that we introduced at the SHOT Show with some prototypes some hand ground pieces
and just now the first production run is flowing through a Warren cliff style
blade as well as the reverse Tonto which you guys have coming up next and it's
it's such a great EDC size it's got 20 cv4 blade steel it runs on bearings and
we've got this really finely tuned detent it flips just like a dream and
they're they kind of have this fidget factor slash EDC thing all in one it's
it's a great knife and we're really excited to have a knife do so well that
doesn't have a spring in it a little outside of our norm and and crazy we can
actually carry it here in California maybe even in Malibu
ya know for sure and I the detent in the fidgets factor that's like you nailed it
like it the button lock is super sweet but the way that it opens closes drop
shuts I mean everything about this knife you just want to play with it all day
yep even even for the folks who work here in the building when you walk by a
tray of them you can't help but pick one up and snap it open and closed a couple
of times you can't help yourself ya know you really have to feel it too
to know just like I just how spot-on it is so really great when we actually had
a couple of them come in stock and before I even had a chance to go look at
them they'd all sold out like and so we've got more on the way hopefully
hopefully Dave keeps pumping them out so we can get more out to you guys we're
working hard on it now next up kind of the one we i teased a little
earlier with that operator one so this is a TR three but alright sorry TR five
but a little bit of an interesting design on this I think the the what you
said with the operator is is like you look at the operator it doesn't have you
know protec billboard it anywhere but you know it's a pro tech when I look at
this knife I don't immediately think Pro Tech so talk to talk to me about this
knife a little bit so this is a neat limited edition this is a TR five that's
received this kind of Bru Shaw overall you know limited edition things so it's
got the brew Shaw design sterling silver skull inlaid in the center of the handle
and then it's print anodized with this really awesome bricks and barbed wire
thing and it's a basically an anodized version of a hand engraved knife that he
did for us years ago and so in the on the backside actually really small
worked right into the barbed wire it says brew shy it's actually got his
signature snuck right in there and so as closely as we work with brew
Shaw on handing grave knives this gets somebody a very Bruce Shaw custom piece
at a very friendly price point yeah and then this one also comes in s35vn is
that correct? blade steel in this correct yeah as thirty-five secondary slide
safety it's got the two-tone harden 416 glass breaker at the back end deep carry
pocket clip all the stuff that makes a TR five are great knife and then on
top of it all this brew Shaw artwork and customization with the skull and the
print anodized really neat piece. yeah for sure and I can definitely
appreciate this piece for you know obviously Bruges all the amazing work he
does and stuff it's a little outside my wheelhouse but I still love it I still
love it because it's a pro-tech thank you thank you well said i might make a t-shirt
yeah there we go all right now next up we have so we have you know like a the
the normal godson you know and right and a beautiful I like this blue hue you
have going there reminiscent of others yeah yeah it's good for you guys but
recently you've released these with unless you know which i think is really
cool first the the lanyard as well first time ever so we made friends with this
super cool guy Greg Stevens from Greg Stephens designs he does neat watch
bands and all kinds of amazing leather work and he and I were at a knife show
and his tends to happen when guys like us get together you know he's got this
cool leather and we've got these knives and next thing you know we're making a
thing and so this is a really neat you know we take a godson which is a knife
we've made I want to say about 16,17 years and you'd think if there was
something to do to it we would have done it already and here there's a brand new
variation of it after all these years first time with leather and since we
were tinkering around with it we also added that lanyard pass through which
you're you know even the ability to put a lanyard in it which a lot of the
godson's don't have and then we also put a deep carry pocket clip on it so a
couple of new things on an older model and that's the fun part of what we do is
we don't like to sit still and just make the same thing over and over again we're
constantly trying to come up with something cool and new for you guys. yeah
and this is this is definitely cool and new I I think generally you don't see
leather inlays very often on knives so it's that's not just that it's cool and
unique for the godson and this is cool and unique knife in general right like it's
not an actual shirt often right and you've been even the way this Greg
Stephens like this particular the one you're holding your hand is vintage
Swiss leather from some military leather you know previously it you know I don't
know recycled or repurposed or whatever so it has this cool vintage Swiss
military origin and now we've made it new again putting it on the knife you've
got you know a guy in Utah hand crafting leather you've got us in California
making the knife it all comes together and you've got something very unique
that's really cool I didn't know he's a Utah boy yeah yeah yeah sure enough huh
well we might have to go to his shop and see what he's up to
absolutely absolutely you'll end up with a watch I promise oh yeah well then
maybe we shouldn't go I mean the knives already it's expensive enough like your
watches are worse all right and then the last knife we
have on the table the only one that we had here in stock right now of br1 magic
is the combo blade but we did have a few of the regular ones do you know do we
have more on the way do you have me definitely more on the way and then okay
cool the next week or two I think the next round of them are stone wash blades
smooth edge and the the BR one such a great knife
you know whiskers mike whiskers Allen the designer of that knife he and I go back
i I've known that guy more than half my life before the pro-tech days when i was
buying and selling custom knives i was buying and selling mike whiskers allen's
custom pieces and then here we are 27 28 years later and we're building this
knife of his design it's fantastic and we're super proud of it!
cool well and that's that's actually the reason that I I grabbed the BR one in
general is speaking of building beautiful knives we have a custom
version of the BR one right now and I know you and Jamie kind of talked about
what knives put on the table and stuff before this goes I think you guys chose
this one on purpose to tempt me because I'm not tempted I'm not tempted by
custom knives there's only two kind of like high-end real high-end custom style
knives I've ever been tempted about and this is one of them this talked us
through this this is just beautiful and we can't have pro-tech on the table
without having at least something that shows this custom work you guys do. for
sure you know we build a ton of knives that are you know at blade HQ available
from say 120 bucks to a couple hundred bucks a lot of really great knives you
know that are pretty reasonable and reach for a lot of folks this of course
our investor collector type category there's a lot going on on a knife like
this there's a lot of titanium so the frame is titanium the bolsters titanium
there's even a separate little back spacer piece that's titanium the pocket
clip is 3d machined titanium and that's just the components now you've got the
chad nichols virus pattern Damascus blade you've got all this extensive
bruce i engraving really a special piece and heirloom quality knife something
like this you know between the art and science and knife making and
everything that goes into it it's really very special it really is you know one
thing that I never noticed when you when you had mentioned pocket clip the pocket
clip on this thing is it's pretty thick it's a really substantial there's a lot
of material on it is it starts out as a solid bar of titanium and we 3d machine
it to my knowledge it's the only 3d machined deep carry titanium clip around
it's about a 42 minutes cycle time just to make that pocket clip and then even
though it's a little hard to see in this video like this the black lip pearl on
that knife is outrageous we were able to find some you know presentation grade
pearl pieces and that's something you turn it in the light and it catches so
much color and fire just extraordinary it really is so how how much how many
man-hours go into and this just one just one of these knives how many man-hours
going just one of these rough estimate the a lot and one of the things that's
fascinating about it is the time frame someone would say how long does it take
to make a knife like that and if you add up the time it takes to order the
Damascus and have Chad Nichols Forge it by hand the machining of those
components you know hours for the frame the bolster almost an hour for the
pocket clip by itself then all the hand sanding polishing sourcing the pearl and
I'll tell you what when we machine that black lip pearls everybody out in the
shop is on pins and needles and if you if you hear grown men cry all the way
from heart to you California it's because one of those pieces broke in the
process right and so you've got all that and then you get everything machined
everything together finished perfectly then you take it apart send it to Bruce
Shaw and now he's engraving by hand send it back build it again that last time
and so that whole cycle that whole process of creation is almost about a
year and a half if you add in the machining sourcing the materials waiting
for the engraver building at that final time so about a year and a half to make
a knife like that that's incredible and you know that's the thing is is I
and I I definitely fall in this camp of its its
for me I love knives as as tools so much right that I have no problem looking at
a tool like this and just being like ya know I put that on the shelf right but
then when you really look at and you're talking you know a year year-and-a-half
to create a knife like this like it that level of specialness just it just
is it's next-level right like you know run time there are
in a few hours you know and yeah right yeah and there are folks who will carry
a knife like this and it's it's aerospace-grade titanium stainless
Damascus you certainly could carry it maybe only special occasions but you
certainly could and it is such a neat thing that we're able to do like the BR 1
when you had in your hand a minute ago is an aluminum everyday carry type range
you know a couple hundred bucks you get up into this one you're into a couple
thousand and so it's one of the fun things about the way we attack knife
making is that we like to build that range and it keeps it interesting for us
and for our customers and we sure do enjoy being able to
produce at that level. for sure well and and again you know I say when you're not
on camera so it audience knows I'm not just saying this you're here but but it
really shows across all of Pro-tech's line a I mean just like you mentioned with the
operator like the second you fire you know it's a Pro-tech like there's no
questions you know even with the Malibu like you play with that Malibu
and you find it's Pro Tech and you're like oh yeah I know 100% of course it's
a pro-tech right I'm cool well some really neat knives for this the summer 2020
right now some really cool stuff to get you guys can go you know with the lower
end all the way up to this custom please somebody buy this custom because it is
tempting me so bad and I would have to sell a motorcycle to buy it and I just
don't know if I can do that to myself somebody buy it know Dave since we have
you on what do you got your pocket today? oh you know actually I've I have been
carrying one of the new Malibu's you know just to get used to the the flipper
and since it is a full-sized protec that's legal in California I've grown
quite comfortable with it it's such a great size and the bleed geometry on
both the tanto and the worn cliff it's got a real high main grind
so they're super slicy it's it's a great knife I say the Malibu for the win
cool huh all right uh well thank you so much for
your time we appreciate it thank you guys
yeah and thank you guys for following along we'll catch you on the next one
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