A Note To Our Fellow Adventurers
We're blessed to have the best friends the world, and fortunate enough to work with some of them. Being 'gear people', we are proud of our dedication to titanium tool watches and enjoy connecting with brands that share likeminded philosophies.
As you'll read in the guest post from Ben Petersen from KNAFS , with our long time collaborators and brothers in titanium at BigIdeaDesigns 'working together' sometimes means snacks, other times it means stitches.
Being long time fans of Knafs (with the Baby Banter making our list of great gear under $100), we were honoured when Ben reached out to share his experience with the UTD-8000 from the perspective of a practical gear aficionado, who already had trusty watch as part of his EDC.
- Huiy Tang, Co-Founder
Look. I don’t know anything about watches. I wore a Timex Ironman for 30 years, not for style points, but for pure function. It did everything except make me look like the owner of a growing knife company. Did I need to look like a high-end rich kid? Absolutely not. But something about mid-life changes you, and makes you wonder if a couple tasteful accoutrements might offset the fatigue and help distract people from the bags under your eyes. I didn’t need a Ferrari. But a Tudor Black Bay advertisement in a magazine definitely caught my attention one day. I made the mistake of looking at the price on that thing. Ha! I can take my kids on a fantastically fun vacation for that kind of money. So, I wore my Timex. Until I met Huiy.
I was back in Chattanooga visiting friends in what had become a yearly ritual: I stop by Big Idea Design, enjoy some dinner, chit-chat, laugh, ride motorcycles indoors, and maybe make an impromptu visit to the ER for stitches. Then I head out to the biggest knife show in the world in Atlanta. The dinner this year included a guy I hadn’t met who was stoked about knives AND loved watches. Huiy Tang (one of the guys running RZE) was dynamic and he took aim at my Timex. He had style questions. I had functional answers. He showed me his UTD-8000, let me try it on, and explained that Kirk Lepiten had designed it. He pointed out the Timex-esque features and titanium construction. He broke into my curiosity, planted seeds of interest, then disappeared into the night.
Something woke up in me. Was it a mild interest in watches? Couldn’t be. My Timex was fine. But then I started asking about others’ watches in public and looking at watchbands while wondering what the big deal was. I even took a picture of a watch that piqued my interest– a first for me. Huiy knew what he’d planted. So, when he resurfaced a couple months later with an offer for me to try the UTD-8000 in blue, he knew he was harvesting in fertile ground. The watch showed up on my doorstep a few days later. I was skeptical but committed.
What happened next was a transition. One does not simply abandon a 30 year relationship with a Timex Ironman. I tried the UTD for a couple days. Back to the Timex. UTD on Sunday to church– classy. Timex to the gym– functional. And then I really committed. You see, Kirk wanted pictures of the UTD from my adventures. Little did he know…
I’m a firm believer that adventure is everywhere, so I wore it everywhere. It hasn’t left my wrist for 9 months now. I’ve bashed it on the bottom of far-off swimming holes and secured tan lines on a 70 mile bike-ride. I’ve taken it down rivers and up mountains. It’s gone across the globe with me and woken me up for 3 a.m. flights. Kirk is probably tired of me texting him pictures of it, but it’s a problem he personally created, so I figure he can personally deal with it.
My watch is a critical part of my EDC system. It’s like this: I spend my days deeeeep in pocket knives as the owner of Knafs. We design, develop, and manufacture everyday carry knives and outdoor knives. I’m particular as a creator and user of these tools. And I’ve realized I’m incredibly particular about how a watch fits into my daily systems and flows as a business owner and dad. It has to be digital with month, day, and date readings. Big numbers are helpful so I can glance down during meetings and stay on track during the day. The seconds are critical as I time my kids’ reading homework. I need an alarm and a back-lit button for middle-of-the-night time checks in tents. A Timex does all of this. Except it never looks classy– it’s a garble of words around the bezel (new word in my budding watch vocabulary) with big logos and visual chaos. The UTD takes the best of my beloved Timex and makes it look goooood. Clean. Refined. And as a 38-year-old dad of 4 kids, sometimes a little snazzy around the edges makes all the difference.
To see all of the great knives and gear that Knafs makes, be sure to check them out on their website, Instagram, and on YouTube.
