Promate?

[Sirrith]

Hello, I've recently taken up scuba diving and have been lurking around here for a while, and now I've finally decided to create an account and ask a question!
I'm looking for a good knife and I came across the promate brand, but have failed to find anything relevant about them on these forums. Does anyone have any information about them to share?
Specifically I'm interested in this knife:
Scuba Diving Snorkeling Titanium Knife: Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Leisure

and also to a lesser extent the barracuda (which seems identical to the US divers titanium dive knife except in branding).

Is promate any good? Do they make quality tools, or should I avoid and go for something like the Halcyon?

thanks

[missiegreen]

Hello there! Welcome to the sport of diving! Promate: They are a company who makes their products overseas, which is not necessarily bad, I own several ProMate products, however, I tend to not use their items as primary dive gear, rather "backup" gear, think of walmart as opposed to Target...Titanium dive knives are great, sold however as strong as they are I would not recommend using them for say scallop removal, they are brittle in my experience and the tip generally breaks off...Halcyon is a good brand and depending on what you want might be a good choice.. A couple of knives to give serious consideration and in my experience is: Trident Spring Blade Dive Knife
Scuba Pro K-5 STAINLESS KNIFE
And my favorite and least expensive H2Odyssey Tiger Point K5

Hope this helps

[Sirrith]

Thanks for the info and recommendations, I notice you seem to favour 4-5" blades? Just for the sake of asking, what would be the difference say in application for a 2.5-3" blade versus a 4-5" blade? Is it just a matter of convenience and keeping your kit small/light? I'd also imagine longer blades are more apt at prying and the lever-type stuff than shorter ones. I'm really just looking for a general purpose knife if there is such a thing, for digging, cutting wire/netting, prying at things, hammering, no specific application in mind.

[missiegreen]

Yes, I tend to use 4" blades, I dive in California mostly and even thought I do not eat seafood ( yeah yeah yeah I know a sin) I do dive with people who do and do on occasion remove scallops and or lend my knife to those to do. In addition, I have been caught in monofilament on more than one wreck; I find that by keeping a reasonable sized knife strapped to my leg that can be used in any application is more convenient for me then to carry a small knife that may not be able to help me cut my way out of any situation... Hope this helps!