American made knife from Minuteman Watch Co.

T

Thomas Carey

Member
Minuteman/Pro-Tech TR4 built to raise funds for Special Operations Warrior Foundation

Greetings everyone!

I thought some of you fine folks might be interested in an effort my brand Minuteman Watch Co is working on in collaboration with Pro-Tech.

Despite the fact Pro-Tech is mostly known as a producer of auto's the knife will be a manual. The handles will be down in Flat Dark Earth and the blades will most likely be done in a black DLC.

25% of the profit from each one we sell will go to Special Operations Warrior Foundation http://www.specialops.org/ We primarily created our watch brand to raise funds for charity and build product in the US.

Here are some photo's of the first prototype which does not have our brand name and logo on it as of yet.

If your wondering what the story is on the pen. We have been working with the American brand Tuff-Writer on a pen in Flat Dark Earth and sent Dave at Pro-Tech one of those to see how close they could get to that color.

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Originally we had planned to offer these with an inlaid skull in the handle as skulls seem to be quite popular currently. Having said that we are not sure if this point if we will stick with that plan or not. What do you fine folks think about that skull?

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I think the skull thing is garbage. The knife has its own merits. I certainly realize you might like to have your logo or what there but I would personally avoid that also and perhaps go with a few vertical lines say near the middle of the handle to break the monotony.
Frank
 
Use the Minuteman logo on the pen in the inset. I agree with Frank, needs something more on the flats, texturing, lines, etc.
 
We touched base with Dave at Pro-Tech today. Turns out we would only be able to offer these with the skull in 2015 due to parts availability. As the skull seems to be somewhat of a sticking point for folks we may produce just 40 of these. We might ask Pro-Tech to provide these with sanitized blades for a cleaner look there.

We sent the same artwork which was used on the pen for use on the pocket clip on the knife. They are going to add that to the clip of the sample knife and have their pro photographer shoot some photo's which we will then post.

Price wise I think we will be offering them for about $300 each. Which will be a bit more than dealers seem to be selling the regular all black version for. We hope to have some pro photo's of the first finished knife to share shortly. For those that don't know 25% of the profit will go to charity.


Speaking of charity currently we are considering donating funds raised from this effort to one of these three charities. Do any of you have experience with any of them?


Special Operations Warrior Foundation


http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=7584#.VS77oPnF83k




Homes for Our Troops


http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=11553#.VS778vnF83k




Fisher House Foundation


http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=7585#.VS779fnF83k
 
Frank Niro said:
I think the skull thing is garbage. The knife has its own merits. I certainly realize you might like to have your logo or what there but I would personally avoid that also and perhaps go with a few vertical lines say near the middle of the handle to break the monotony.
Frank
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at first: that what follows means no offence, Gentlemen, but I think all of You are tough and man enough to read a honest statement:
I agree with Frank about the skull, besides never understand the fascination of skulls passing the age of 16, exactly that style of skull brought in that manner reminds me of something that happened in my home country about 60 years ago, it looks simply like an SS-skull, only the thigh bone joints are missing, sorry about that honest words, but thats like it looks to me, is there no other attractive embellishment than negative death symbol skulls?.....as far as we are educated by history only the bad asses carry skulls, Pirates, SS, south american death squads, all those criminals, that bring death, grief and desperation....but America are the good guys.....?or miss I something?.....so far the staement of Joe Nobody the face in the crowd, who is supposed to see, like and buy
..........but the monotony is in the "nature" of such tactical pieces, ...it is just the monotony of the style itself.
...behind that skull hides a stout looking tactical with a size I really like on folders.....
 
I like the knife. The blade shape and the size of the complete package. I can even live with the smooth slabs, (I carried a Spyderco Police all day today on a trip to the city). I am a fan of the "skull", but not in this application. I carve skulls on sheaths when asked but not on the knife. Sorry.
Steve
 
Jeremiah Rostig said:
at first: that what follows means no offence, Gentlemen, but I think all of You are tough and man enough to read a honest statement:
I agree with Frank about the skull, besides never understand the fascination of skulls passing the age of 16, exactly that style of skull brought in that manner reminds me of something that happened in my home country about 60 years ago, it looks simply like an SS-skull, only the thigh bone joints are missing, sorry about that honest words, but thats like it looks to me, is there no other attractive embellishment than negative death symbol skulls?.....as far as we are educated by history only the bad asses carry skulls, Pirates, SS, south american death squads, all those criminals, that bring death, grief and desperation....but America are the good guys.....?or miss I something?.....so far the staement of Joe Nobody the face in the crowd, who is supposed to see, like and buy
..........but the monotony is in the "nature" of such tactical pieces, ...it is just the monotony of the style itself.
...behind that skull hides a stout looking tactical with a size I really like on folders.....
Click to expand...

I agree with jeremiah wholeheartedly! The skull looks like an SS death's head hat badge. Lose that trash!

Besides that, The Minute man logo has class and you say you are giving money to our veteran programs.

I sell a few protect autos on a retail basis and don't order the ones with the stupid skull. If you make them without, I may buy one for personal use.Please, No Skulls!:thumbdown:
 
I agree with those above. The skull turns a really nice knife into a flea-market look-alike. Not a good look for a $300 knife. As soon as I see that I'm checking the blade for CHINA or PAKISTAN.

Blank scales are fine with me on a rugged knife. Let the knife speak for itself.

You don't put a fifty cent bumper sticker on a luxury car. If the bumper sticker helps, it doesn't say much for the car, does it?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
... Make the circular background black and set some little "rubies" in the eyes. ;)

Do it like you mean it,... or don't do it at all. I guess what I'm saying is, either make it really pop and flash!,... or just pop it off.
 
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Frank Niro said:
I think the skull thing is garbage. The knife has its own merits. I certainly realize you might like to have your logo or what there but I would personally avoid that also and perhaps go with a few vertical lines say near the middle of the handle to break the monotony.
Frank
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Yes, there is no need of that skull. Its better to put a logo over there.
 
Sadly we have no choice but to use the skull and go with the design as is. Here is why.

1. We are not able to get access to parts for the handles in 2015 the do not already have the recess etc for the skull.
2. We are only making 40 of these. Thus we do not have the resources to be able to cover the cost of design, tooling, and manufacture for something to use in place of the skull which you can bet no matter what we put in it's place plenty of people still would not like it.

Pro-Tech believes in this product so much so though that they have actually gone ahead and produced all the parts and scheduled production for it. If we follow up with another one in 2016 for sure it will not have a skull.

We hope some of you will look past the skull and consider the purchase of what will be a quality American made knife. Especially as it will help in our efforts to raise funds for charities that assist veterans and their families.
 
Here is some info we would like to share about these knives from our friends at Pro-Tech Knives.


"Frame is 6061 T6 aircraft grade aluminum. Like ALL Pro-Tech knives we start with blocks of metal and machine everything in house.
Full four inch Blade is 154-CM
The skull is sterling silver and is based on a Bruce Shaw hand carved skull knife that was on the front cover of Tactical Knives magazine a couple of years ago.
At the back end we feature the glass breaker/lanyard pass through. That piece is full hard stainless steel and was tested by US Marines on breaking Hummer windows out.
Custom skull lanyard also USA Made by our friends at Schmuckatelli company here in CA."
 
We want to point out that Special Operations Warrior Foundation. http://www.specialops.org/ has a 4 star rating from Charity Navigator and has been around since about 1980. 25% of the profit from all Minuteman Watch Co items we sell in 2015 will go to them. So we would greatly appreciate it if you fine folks would help us get the word out about our efforts and consider purchasing one of these knives.
 
Thomas Carey said:
Sadly we have no choice but to use the skull and go with the design as is. Here is why.

1. We are not able to get access to parts for the handles in 2015 the do not already have the recess etc for the skull.
2. We are only making 40 of these. Thus we do not have the resources to be able to cover the cost of design, tooling, and manufacture for something to use in place of the skull which you can bet no matter what we put in it's place plenty of people still would not like it.

Pro-Tech believes in this product so much so though that they have actually gone ahead and produced all the parts and scheduled production for it. If we follow up with another one in 2016 for sure it will not have a skull.

We hope some of you will look past the skull and consider the purchase of what will be a quality American made knife. Especially as it will help in our efforts to raise funds for charities that assist veterans and their families.
Click to expand...
Great thomas, you are doing a great job.:35:
 
I like what I have seen in this last picture. I do not like skulls etc. as previously stated makes a good knife look cheap. I am also glad that it is not a framelock. My EDC is a Benchmade Mini Griptillion, it has a diamond texture that I like. This may affect the cost to manufacture but would fill in some space and add some asthetics. Dan
 
Here is an update. These have been well received especially by the audience of Glenn Beck's TV show. So we now have just 20 left which we can now offer. For those of you who purchased one or told you friends about our humble efforts we thank you.





http://minutemanwatches.com/knives/minutemanpro-tech-tr4-manual


Currently we are thinking of a follow up that would be smaller and lower priced. One idea is a traditional style slip joint folder. Do any of you have any suggestions for a follow up?
 
For those of you that may have ordered. We are building these out in 2 batches. The first is on the way to us at Minuteman Watch Co now. We hope to have those shipped out by Tuesday of next week. We are setting aside 5 of these for those that may want one at a later date. This leaves us with just 7 which we can offer now.

Here are some photo's of the assembly from Dave at Pro-Tech.

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