I like and agree with your sort of floodgate theory. The Free P could just be the platform for much better tools in the future. And the Free P is a great place to start. LM really stepped up their game with the Free series. I still feel the fit & finish are top-tier. My P4, with weeks of carry, has performed quite well. It just needs, in the future, to accommodate awesome existing features(bit exchanger and blade exchanger and some other stuff) from other tools.
"Yeah, you’re probably wondering what does it do? Well, it does everything the Wave does equal to or better. It’s important to note, that’s not the selling point of this new collection. Look at these screwdrivers… we have not taken these screwdrivers to a new level of, let’s call it, “screwdriver-ness". That is if anybody looks at this they say, “That looks like the Wingman screwdriver." So, it’s about everything else. It’s not about the world’s best screwdriver it is about the world’s best access to a multi-tool screwdriver."-Peter ParkerYou know what I am going to say right? Equal too or better than my foot. Also, now I know where Sony's Spiderman went to work after those two terrible movies (not the new ones). The U.S. Economy strikes again. I feel like he just said...HEY! IGNORE THE TOOLS INSIDE! Don't I look fancy in this new package? Yes. the quality and function of the internal tools really does matter a lot. Basically what this tells me is that they are not trying to create Multi-tools that have components that are equal to the real thing (like Rebar Phillips) , but instead want to make tools that get the job done....unless its a hard job....then get some real tools...
While I doubt that Apple watches are done, they seem to be the new thing in the Marine Corps, I also doubt that this technology Free technology is as well. I mean a Rebar or ST300 with outside opening tools and those clean movements. It is coming. Only a Leatherman hater would oppose it.
Maybe the Free series is Leathermans Apple Watch. An overprized gadget that nobody wants for real work, but all the hipsters pay big money to own it and show it off.
"it does everything the Wave does equal to or better"
I said something similar a while back, but got shouted down for it, because I hadn't been daft enough to buy one
Pretty smug statement, is it not? I didn't see where anyone went back and quote mined your early assertions(concerns if you will) about the P series, and then discussed how incorrect they were after the fact. Maybe don't label people who bought a P2/P4 "daft". It's quite rude in my opinion.
I’ve tried carrying a P4 for several weeks. It does have some good points, I like the new locking system and the shape of the knife blade is good. Unfortunately, it’s still 420HC and this ain’t BOS 420HC. It dulls easily compared to even my low end Spydercos. The tool stock on the flat drivers is thin. I actually bent the ruler but was able to bend it back. Too much torque I guess. The lack of a bit holder is unfathomable. The Philips screwdriver works pretty well but has almost stripped a couple of large screws. That’s where the bit adapter with a 1/4” bit works well. Also, there is no way to drive Torx screws. The file is almost useless for me. Whoever green lighted that design should be fired. I find that the lock release tabs can dig in to your hand if you aren’t careful how you hold the pliers. The tools popping out is annoying but not a deal breaker. All in all, I’d say the tool load out is not better than the Wingman and inferior to the Surge, Wave/Surge, ST300 and Rebar. I rarely carry it now and carry either my Charge or Skeletool with a Surge in my bag. This tool is just a toy to me now. That’s a shame because it could be such a great platform. Just my opinion...Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I would agree, i am just not sure if a layperson that has never used a mt before, would know that outside opening tools are better. Or care about that at all. I think they also don‘t know that you can deploy the tools with a finger flip instead of pulling them out.They will realize that at home, once they open the package and start mess with it.An MT-enthusiast knows all that, because they have done research on that tool. That is were i have a hard time following LMs reasoning.If they want to sell the P2/4 to laypeople, it needs to be cheaper. If they, on the other hand, want to sell to MT-enthusiasts, they need a different tool compliment. 3D Phillips, bit driver and so on. I just do not understand the way they think
That „cheaper“ part for sure did not work Thanks for the link, interesting read after all
Leatherman was worried about the Wave patents expiring and cheap Chinese copies with increased quality flooding the market for a much lower price than the Leatherman Wave. So they wanted a new platform. That seems kind of gimmicky to me and also missing the point of why people buy Leatherman tools. It's a company that stand by their products and they're very tough tools to begin with. Maybe this goes to why they were making a direct comparison to the Wave. You can read some of the behind the scenes development process for the Free series in this article.How Tim Leatherman Created the Iconic American Multitool“He said that our patents" on the Leatherman Wave ”are going to run out, and we won’t be able to protect it from copies,” Lazenby recalls. “‘We need you to make it faster, cheaper, smaller, lighter.’ Which is impossible.” Still, he hunkered down and eventually emerged with the Free series.
Thanks for the link as I would have loved to read about TL's thinking... however I get a "Not Authorized 403" error.
Chances are you’ve got a Leatherman tool somewhere. Maybe it’s in your backyard shed or your car’s glove box or, perhaps more likely, in that catchall kitchendrawer, next to the triple-A batteries and rubber bands. It’s not just a fixture in the lives of men. It’s also a pop-culture mainstay, appearing in A Quiet Place, Speed, Battlestar Galactica, even in Tom Cruise’s hand in Oblivion. The Leatherman resonates for a million reasons but also for one: It’s a symbol of Americana, that rare, functional totem with the durability to be passed down from father to son. Which is a nice sentiment but also a challenging business proposition for the Portland, Oregon–based company: How do you get people to replace something that’s guaranteed for 25 years and basically never breaks? Especially if a man is—gulp—emotionally attached to it?*image removed*Inside America’s Toughest Survival School *video removed*01:07That’s the question I want to ask Tim Leatherman, the 70-year-old inventor of the Pocket Survival Tool, as it’s officially known, as we sit down for dim sum in honor of the tool’s first major redesign in nearly 20 years. But first I have to ask: Is the dude’s last name seriously Leatherman? It’s as if LeBron’s last name were Dunksalot.*image removed*Leah NashHe smiles at the question. Tim is tall and lanky, like a geeky stunt double for Clint Eastwood, and over the sound of a waitress taking our order, he says: “So many people think that Leatherman is a 100-year-old company that used to be in the leather-making business.” It’s not. And the product’s name could have been a whole lot less iconic: At first, Tim almost called the tool Mr. Crunch, “because of the clamping feature.”*advertisement image removed*The 7 Best New Rain Jackets to Keep You Dry This Season That was in 1980, when he patented his design and was simply looking for someone to produce it, never imagining that one day it would go to space—in the pocket of NASA astronaut Donald Pettit—and be endorsed by The New York Times, last year, as the best multitool on the market, edging out competitors from companies like Gerber and Victorinox.Of all the uses for the multitool, here’s one you never considered: Ben Rivera, the CEO of Leatherman, used the scissors on his to cut his baby’s umbilical cord. I mostly use mine to open packages from Amazon. But the mission is the same: The gadget is meant to save you a trip to get the just-right tool because this one does a little bit of everything.*image removed*Leah NashThe new Leatherman design, called the Free series, does the same thing. It’s just a whole lot easier to use. And the innovation isn’t semantic. The original Leatherman was famous for its butterfly design. Sure, you’d have to open the thing to find what you needed—the screwdrivers, the knife, the tiny saw—but at least it was all there. With the Free, the tools are now facing out, so you don’t need to open it up to get at one. The tools are also accessible by pushing down on a metal release with your thumb. With practice, you can open anything you need with one hand without looking.*advertisement image removed*Exposing the Impacts of Palm Oil, One of the Most Corrupt and Damaging Industries on Earth That magic trick comes courtesy of head designer Adam Lazenby, 36, a man who lives on a sailboat and bicycles to work and has run into more than his fair share of moments requiring a multitool. According to Lazenby, the tool’s five-year journey to market began in a conference room in Portland at the direction of the product manager for the category.*image removed*Leah Nash“He said that our patents”—on the Leatherman Wave—”are going to run out, and we won’t be able to protect it from copies,” Lazenby recalls. “‘We need you to make it faster, cheaper, smaller, lighter.’ Which is impossible.” Still, he hunkered down and eventually emerged with the Free series.Taking on impossible tasks is baked in to the company’s DNA. Tim Leatherman was an aimless mechanical engineering student in 1970 when he met his wife, Chau, in a Portland State dorm basement, where he was playing ping-pong. In 1975, the newlyweds bought a run-down Fiat 600 for $300 and set off across Europe and the Middle East on a 17-country road trip with the hope of answering that eternal question: What are we going to do with our lives?*advertisement image removed*The Essential Ski Gear for Far North Adventure In a possibly apocryphal story, fate intervened. The car had wiring issues and leaky hoses that needed repair. Tim, who is admittedly not handy, also encountered plumbing issues at the budget hotels where they stayed. After checking in to one in Tehran, he channeled his frustrations into a sketch for what he craved: “a Boy Scout knife with pliers.”*image removed*Leah NashFor three years he worked on building a prototype in a garage in Portland while Chau paid the bills by helping to resettle families fleeing communist Vietnam. Tim eventually patented his idea and tried to sell it to knife companies (which dismissed it as more of a tool), then to tool companies (which believed it was a gadget that wouldn’t sell). After getting the brush-off from potential buyers including AT&T and the U.S. military, Leatherman realized he’d need to manufacture the thing himself.It took eight years to get the Pocket Survival Tool into anyone’s pocket. The PST made its debut in 1983 in a catalog you’ve never heard of and, 10 years later, Leatherman, still a private company, was selling more than a million units a year. A follow-up called the Wave was introduced in 1998 and became a million-unit seller almost overnight.Today, Leatherman employs 500 people and its tools are sold in more than 80 countries. On a recent trip to Australia—to mark the company’s 35th anniversary—Tim encountered a woman with dreadlocks who performed a song she’d written in honor of the tool, singing: “If I didn’t have my Leatherman, I’d be so much deader than I am.”*image removed*Leah NashThe Free launches in April, and a folding knife version, the Free K Series—with a 3.35-inch stainless steel blade—will go on sale in August. Lazenby started sketching in 2014, and fairly quickly he came up with the idea of tools facing outward.“You need two hands to use the Wave,” he says. “But if you put the tools on the outside, it’s obvious where everything is. I want the Phillips screwdriver? It’s right there.”*advertisement image removed*Hit the Gym in the Best New Training Gear of 2019 (So Far) The overhaul was obvious enough, he says, flipping the Free prototype in his hand the way an ’80s movie villain flings a switchblade. But making it a reality was a nerd’s errand. Lazenby, who previously worked on hydrogen fuel cells, starts talking about the process, going into absurd detail about the magnets that hold the knife, and how the size of the new pliers’ handles makes it virtually impossible to pinch yourself. And about the “epic haptics,” which is another way of saying the tool makes a cool noise when it snaps shut. He catches himself rambling and admits: “To the rest of the world, it’s a tiny detail some geek is excited about. But I’m that geek. And I was excited.”Tim Leatherman, who is semiretired—and a new grandfather—is pretty excited, too. He walks me through the company’s 90,000-square-foot production facility, where the tools are manufactured with the finest U.S. steel. Tim interacts cheerily with the employees on the line, marveling at the robotics used to cut and polish the steel. For the record, he carries the Charge Ti, which stands for titanium, and while the tool is pricey, he shrugs. “As the owner,” he says, “I think I have permission to carry the deluxe version.” Smiling through eyeglasses that double as safety goggles, he outlines a challenge I hadn’t thought of.“There’s a lot of knockoffs coming from China,” he says. “The price is about one-tenth of ours, but the quality is about one-twentieth. Nevertheless, the day is going to come when the price is 50 percent of ours but the quality is 80 percent. We’re trying to be proactive.”*image removed*Leah NashHe dreams of a day when his team can squeeze a homing beacon inside the tool. He’s fairly certain that would be a hit, though he acknowledges that not every innovation has connected with customers. We walk past a photo gallery of an evolution of the product line, and we soon come to a tool I’d never heard of called the Flare. “It had a fork and a pâté knife,” Tim says. A pâté knife? Like for slicing duck terrine in an emergency?He laughs. “We thought the European picnicker would be our prime market. That turned out not to be true. I guess they decided it wasn’t a good idea to change your oil one minute, then picnic the next with the same tool.”*image removed*A Brief History of the LeathermanSince debuting in 1983, the multitool has become a household name. Here’s how.*image removed*The Original*image removed*LeathermanTim Leatherman’s invention took eight years to develop and manufacture. It was the first multitool that incorporated a pliers, and it sold 10 million units.*image removed*The Expanding Line*image removed*LeathermanToday, Leatherman produces more than 25 items, including knives, accessories, a wearable watch that comes with 20 tools, and shears called the Raptor, above.*image removed*The 2019 Free Series*image removed*LeathermanDebuting in April, the device retains the classic folding design of the original but incorporates the tools on the outside of the folded-up unit, which are accessible by a new push-open feature.
& Though, with those points and mine, there is one fact. The Free P2/P4 seems to be massively popular at the moment and with a relatively low defect report. Many(and I am willing to say most personally) complaints seem to be geared towards what the P2/P4 doesn't do by design, and not what is actually wrong with the P2/P4. That's good news for the owners, users, and collectors.LM's absolutely smurf-brained marketing approach has really caused a more-than-deserved amount of negativity for the P2/P4. IMO. Leatherman, stop doing that crap. It isn't a Wave killer, so treat it like what it is, a fidget-spinner of MTs that works as the directions state.And I'm not letting LM off with any reason about Wave patents though. Patents for the PST have been expired for eons, and no company has really copied the essence and feel of the PST. Almost all PST clones are pretty bad, and the good ones are mediocre. Yeah, Chinese produced tools have gotten much better, but most still don't work out as well as LM's old designs. The ones that do are pretty expensive, so why not shell out a bit more cash and get the excellent CS and US build. The Wave would be even more difficult to make a proper clone(some say homage) of. I own enough MTs to get a feel of where the Chinese produced tool market is at in terms of overall use and feel(quality-wise). The decent Chinese tools are definitely knocking on LM tool pricing these days, but still suffer poor-steel treating, QC problems galore, and bad customer service.Another example that has been discussed here is the Vic SwissTool. For $100, you'd think a Chinese company would have made a SwissTool killer for $50, but it hasn't happened. Not even close.Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of the Chinese tools I have bought and used, but cannot honestly say that any of them would stand a chance of dethroning my LMs, Vics, SOGs, Bear Jaws, or Gerbers.Even when Chinese tool companies get a good platform and decent tool, there is always something jacked up about the design. One example is the WorkPro HD. Fine tool, great design, and looks great. But, they smurfed up the pliers execution big time....then never tried to rectify the problem, and those tools are $40-$50.
They probably meant cheaper to make.
Thanks GLBM
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