This is going to take ages.......
Right, thankyou to everyone, we've had some great ideas, interesting suggestions and some enjoyable ridiculousness but i suppose i should tone everything down a bit with a few design restrictions:
Although some very complex things can be done with 3D printing, much less complexity can be achieved with the machines a coin making company will have, which is where they would be manufactured on mass (i'm not even sure the central hex is doable), so any feature that can't be cut or formed using a stamping press is unlikely to be achievable.
Of course in the future 3D printing might well be the preferred method of medium volume manufacturing for this kind of item but until then we must resign ourselves to various limitations.
I also hope that if we do end up making an MT.O challenge coin that it will be just the first in a long line of coin creations, with many of the ideas posed here finding their way into sunsequent iterations.
I have decided that to start with, the coin should only have very basic tool function, to stop it becoming a full one-piece multitool and stay a symbolic token of the forums passion.
Although it should be capable of being used it should not be considered a tool.
Think of it like an anniversary leatherman or swiss army knife, we want them, but not to use as they're too special.
If the designs on the faces are as good as i'm hoping they will be, the last thing anyone will want to do is risk damaging them.
I just thought we could do something other than a solid round coin to show who we are and what we do.
I drew up some of the suggestions to see what they'd look like fully scaled.
The one on the left is what i want the final coin's layout to look like.
So now i would like any designs that any of you may have for the two faces.
I think we'd all like to see MT.O and/or MULTITOOL.ORG on the coin somewhere, along with the year 2013, but apart from that anything goes really.
Right now the really long bit.......
Northern Geek wrote:
Maybe you could add screwdriver tips between the spoke wrenches? Might make it less comfortable though but it'd add some more uses?
Tofty: Coin bronze shouldn't be used for screw driver tips as it's alot softer than most screws it would be used on, it can be used for spanner/wrench drivers up to a point but even then it will wear quite quickly.
Comfort is a major factor for edc tools, there are a number of threads on this forum about how the gerber shard's less than satisfactory shape has led a number of users do discard it from pocket carrying.
nuphoria wrote:
Screwdrivers and Metric sized hex or wrench type things please
Tofty: I chose the bicycle spoke wrenches as they are the smallest functional wrench size there is.
The smallest hex size worth adding to a tool would be a 5mm or perhaps a 3/16", these are considerably larger than the spoke wrenches and with increasing sized hexes of 5.5mm, 7mm and 8mm needing to be added to give a fair range of useful sizes the tool very quickly becomes just a skeletonized frame.
I'll draw it up in a bit to see what it looks like.
AHB wrote:
I think it should be kept as simple as possible, so a hex in the middle and rounded edges (like the ones on top/no spoke wrenches) all the way around. Nothing more..
Tofty: Yep i agree, most achievable design while still being unique to us.
Northern Geek wrote: I guess there's a point to this as well. there's only so much you can add before it stops feeling like an actual coin.
Tofty: Indeed, the loss of it's primary function of being a cool looking coin is something to be avoided.
enki_ck wrote:
This, but make the edge like the pocket screwdriver so it can be used on different sizes of screws.
Maybe lower the 1/4 hole, place a double sided leatherman flat/phillips bit in the middle and the full name on top.
Tofty: I never liked the pocket screwdriver as the blade profile is always wrong for any size screw head and the outer edges where all the torgue is applied make very little contact, making cam-out damage inevitable. They're even worse for countersunk flat heads which is what i come across most of the time anyway.
The rendering above shows the coin with a slot for the double sided leatherman bit which is about 32mm long. The design would work much better on a strip of metal with the bit channel along the middle and the hex on one end.
Raukodur wrote:
This does depend on whether we want to go for simple design, or cram as much as we can into it.
And if you go with the latter option, it depends if you want to be a jack of all trades or a master of one, i.e. do you want it to have lots of different functions but with limited functionality, or just have one function, but do it very well.
Personally, I dislike redundancy, so I already have keyring size equipment with screwdrivers and wrenches, etc. What I would really like, is something very different and imaginative. And you know what? A good alternative to that is to have a very aesthetically pleasing design and motif, and forget about functions, given that we already have most all of the functions we would end up putting on this.
Tofty: Well put, i've always felt multitools have always been a bit Jack-like when compared to dedicated tools, which i use whenever possible.
A round 1/4" hex driver coupled with an extented bit holder is actually something i use at work quite a lot in preference to a t-bar or screwdriver handle for driving hex bits.
Is my design asthetically pleasing? I'm sure the motif will be at least.
Xelkos wrote:
Put a magnet on one end, or magnetize it. Set it upon a floating item and have a functional compass.
Then if the coin had a hole through it, it could serve as a part retrieval item. Dangle from a string and the magnetic end could fetch the item.
If you wanted to go even classier, put a small tritium vial on that magnetic/north end. Or a glow in the dark marker?
If you set the center as a normal hex bit driver, taper it on one side. That way when used as a hex driver the hex bit will have a shoulder to to help keep it pressed on the screw. Too many hex holes are not tapered and you have to fight to keep the bit in the holder.
One tool I would like to see on one end, if you are going that route, is a valve core remover/tightener.
Another thing could add is a mini-bit driver to hold an eye-glass bit from Leatherman.
Guess it depends how unique you want the coin stand out from the crowd.
Tofty: They're all good ideas and hopefully ones that get an airing at some point but at the moment i'd say it shouldn't be THAT unique, not yet.
Magnets can be annoying in the pocket, i tried to carry the TEC pen on my keychain, which has a magnet in the head, and it interferred with all the other stuff too much and caused clumping so i got rid of it.
Tapering the hex would be a good idea but the coin is too thin for it to work as all the hexes surface area is needed to drive properly. The tool combined with a 60mm bit holder will work well as the coin can sit on the holders shouldered edge and be fully retained with just an o-ring over the top. Again a drawing would help to clarify this.
Raukour wrote:
So thinking about this a bit one, one possible idea:
Instead of a 'coin' what if it was more like a 'ring' and so could functional like a keyring, with either a solid or hollow centre.
I have tried to make a sketch of both designs. The blue area would be where the logo(s) could go.
I do like the idea of some sort of glow in the dark marker.
Tofty: It's a nice idea but the rings would be too thick to attach anything other than big split-rings (20mm+). Perhaps thats a little over dramatic but i feel 40mm would be too large for this kind of key ring so a smaller ring would really be needed and that would limit the available design space available.
Glow markers would be cool, definitely a contender for a future iteration.
Well thats all i can manage, i'm giving up for now and will address the rest later.
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