IsLeatherman under new management?

[SgtTowser]

I asked to hold a Free K4 at a certain bricks and mortar store.

No matrix virtual experience online. 

I walked through a parking lot under a sky crisscrossed with spreading condensation trails leaving a scuzzy sky.

Normal.

My cellphone was in my pocket mapping my every step and communicating with a nearby 5G lamp post relaying to a nearby 5G tower to relay to a clear line of sight tower on the hilltop across the valley that was instantaneously distributing my movement as numbered packets for convergence through a single pipe, filtered for archiving in hardened underground storage.

I was N-95 masked.

I entered, and  stood saturated with 5G, at the knife and multitool display. I was under constant video surveillance. Every sound was being recorded one way or another. 90 percent of the products on the shelves were from China.

But I was there to see an FK4 made in USA.

A sales person opened the case, brought out a  real object, not a video presentation, and placed it in my hand.

It seemed real, not a hologram of polygons, nor a cheap clone made by slaves “somewhere.”

But I had never seen a real one before, so I could easily have been fooled a number of ways, ranging from 3D printed copying, to microwave stimulation of certain neural pathways at 30 and 300 mghz frequencies.

I got the blade open awkwardly. A Skeletool blade was twice better.

I literally could not get the tools in the handle to deploy. The store person with long nails, got one tool out, but no more. This was the DEMO!!!

I have trimmed, filed nails I keep short. I can operate a Wave and a Skeletool no problem. But not the FK4.

Astonished and feeling vaguely like Philip
Kindred Dick in VALIS I gave it back and exited the store.

I walked out under the scuzzy sky and watched as masked strangers like me shuffled anonymously but still made by AI.

Inside my car which can at any moment be wirelessly accidented, I pulled out my box store flipper in my glove box—one running on  bearings. It flips open and closed effortlessly. It cost 1/4 what the  FK4 did.

I pulled out my Cybertool. It cost $10 more than the FK4. It opens and closes easily. It has double or triple the functions.

I check the reviews of an oligopsonist online retailer: 80 percent give the FK4 the highest rating.

Is any of this real?

Does Leatherman have new management?

Was this their contribution to clown world rolled out 2019  for 2020?

My head hurts.

Is this entire experience part of nonlinear warfare for the NOT SO GREAT RESET?

Or did I just hold a lemon?

“The truth is out there.”—Chris Carter

Maybe.

[Chako]

 

I am just impress you used oligopsonist in your posting. 

[hsherzfeld]

 
I think it's more likely that you just held a lemon. I'm not a fan of Leatherman's attempts at SAK-style multitool-knives, as you mentioned, SAKs of comparable price have double or triple the tool count.

[SgtTowser]

I am just impress you used oligopsonist in your posting. 

 

I haven’t needed it very often, but it’s there when I need it. 😀

[Chako]

You sir, are a true wordsmith. 

[Echotech]

Had to look that one up

[SgtTowser]

My mentor said words were tools.

[Nix]

Multitools at that.

[NetsNJ]

Why did you need nails for the K4?  Did you try rolling your thumb over the tang of the tools??

[parnass]

Why did you need nails for the K4?  Did you try rolling your thumb over the tang of the tools??

I noticed that many of the YouTube "unboxers" who have trouble opening the individual tools on the Free series are doing it wrong.  They have not read nor followed the instructions packaged with the tool.

[SgtTowser]

Why did you need nails for the K4?  Did you try rolling your thumb over the tang of the tools??

Yes! And they would not come out! I was astonished. I tried everything with fingers short of using my Cybertool as a pry bar. I gave it back to the sales person in exasperation and she said, “You’re not the first one to have problems with it.”

[SgtTowser]

I noticed that many of the YouTube "unboxers" who have trouble opening the individual tools on the Free series are doing it wrong.  They have not read nor followed the instructions packaged with the tool.

Is a knife design that requires reading an instruction booklet to open up a few tools at the pommel a good design? I used to know an industrial designer with a few products in MOMA in NYC and he said: good design should make use of a device intuitive. He said any idiot could design something persons could not figure out how to use.  He said the skill  was in making it work intuitively. Maybe Leatherman should change the name from Free K4 to Rubik K4? 😀  Seriously, I’ve never needed to read instructions to pick up a new Leatherman multitool and open it up and use any of its tool set before. Same with my Gerber multitools and my SAK Champs and Cybertool. It’s positively bizarre to design this way. I got an M1 Carbine as a gift from my Dad when I was 16 years old. I did not need instructions to load the clip, insert it, pull the bolt to chamber a round and start shooting. And I had never handled any rifle, but a bolt action .22 Winchester. My god! If some one could design a semi automatic .30 caliber carbine that could be operated without reading an instruction manual, surely someone can design a folding knife with a few tools at the pommel to open intuitively 70 years later.

[old Lefty]

^
word!

Lähetetty minun SM-T515 laitteesta Tapatalkilla

[SgtTowser]

^
word!

Lähetetty minun SM-T515 laitteesta Tapatalkilla

Ay oh wah heh heh.

[dks]

The Crunch is not intuitive, if you want to use the pliers

[SteveC]

 

[SgtTowser]

The Crunch is not intuitive, if you want to use the pliers

I have not tried the Crunch. Thanks for the heads up.

Maybe the designer was embracing Bill Gates’ rumored old rule regarding software: make it so painful to use with such a steep, costly, time consuming learning  curve that the customer is too traumatized to risk changing products? 😀

[genevabuck]

Why did you need nails for the K4?  Did you try rolling your thumb over the tang of the tools??

That is what I was wondering.

[SgtTowser]

That is what I was wondering.

And the answer is: YES, I did try mastering the seemingly obvious! 😀

And you know what?

Not. A. Single. Tool. Moved. Even. A. Smidge.

I thought I was on a neo Candid Camera: the Post Covid Edition!!!

I wondered if Allen Funt Prime had been generated to distract us all from the wheels coming off all the narratives of the last few years, by plastic welding the tools not to move to catch my astonished reaction.

But as John Belushi used to say before he ate to much intelligence dust, “Noooooooo.”

Neo Allen Funt did not come out from the stock room with a camera and a grin  and say, Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!”

The frickin’ tools just would not move.

I am still astonished. 

[vadsoom]

Letterman may have intentionally over tightened the screws to prevent someone from deploying the blades in the store and hurting themselves. Just my .02

[Nix]

I am still astonished. 

That makes one of us.   

[SgtTowser]

That makes one of us.   

I guess I have been away from Leatherman tools too long. I just never thought a day would come that a Leatherman would do anything but work great out of the box.

I never quit carrying them for their quality control. I just wanted a smaller, denser form factor and found it in my SAKs.

Frankly, a Leatherman knife with some pommel tools seemed a winning move.

Maybe they will work the kinks out.