30 Day Coghlan's Campers Tool Challenge!

[Jothra]

Haha we are such thorough people here. Now I know the difference between the rims of coke and pepsi cans. 

Yeah. I almost feel kinda dirty.

At least I know it wasn't some new and bizarre inadequacy of Campy's.

[TheDude]

I have had that experience with aluminum cans before. I think it is more to do with it tearing due to the strain put on it whilst you are using the can opener, (It is a can opener after all) kind of like how it is easier to tear paper towel semi-neatly along the perforations. Because some of he work has been done already.

[Jothra]

It's Day 28, and it's a very merry Grouting Day! Because of the bewildering variety of seated, standing, and squatting positions an entire day of grouting entails, the only thing in any of my pockets was Campy. Was Campy up to the challenge of doing...well...everything?

We were off to a good start with this rigid insulation, which made the mistake of being in front of the column base I was after.


Wait, is that the...no. He wouldn't use that again!

Since the nearest saw was in my satchel, which was uncharacteristically far away, I decided to try the fish scaler. After all, the tool is shaped like one of those dull, saw-like pumpkin carving knives you give to your kids before you trust them with anything sharper than a boiled egg. It wasn't as clean as a saw cut, but it did the trick, and I used it like this for the rest of the day. This is, of course, the second time in the history of the entire universe that a fish scaler has been useful for anything.

Next up was a new water scooping cup...thingy. As per our earlier discussion, I hunted down a Pepsi can, which was easy to find, since someone is littering them around the site with alarming frequency. Seriously, someone out there must be drinking 30 litres of cola a day. Anyway, this ought to give some of you a thrill:


Hey, there's a multitool in my Pepsi! I demand a refund!

As you can see in this picture, even before morning coffee Campy was rife with grout dust. Good news: it washed right off, and everything's shiny again.

Finally, here are some of the scarier things Campy had to do today. The first Scary Thing was batoning. This is something I usually don't do. I've done this while firestarting in the woods, because sometimes you stupidly forget your axe. My tamping stick was twice as thick as I needed for two different columns today, so I needed to thin it up:


Bang! Bang! Bang! is the sound of my margin trowel's handle mercilessly smashing down on the end of Campy's blade.


I had to use an actual saw for this part, so a big hand for the Outrider! Yaaaaaaaaaay!

So, batoning worked out. I wasn't sure how handily Campy's blade would survive it, but I don't see any damage. Good thing your blade doesn't have to be too sharp for this one.

Finally, I needed to flatten the point on the back end of my tamping stick (the thick part that I kept) so I could tamp in an odd corner. Pliers, I choose you!


See? I choose them!

Then I cleaned it up a bit with the knife blade, which was only mildly terrifying without any kind of locking mechanism and an edge as sharp as a $30 suit:


dontfoldupdontfoldupdontfoldup...

And thus ended Day 28!

[gregozedobe]

Go ! Campy Go !  you good thing !!!!!   

[jerseydevil]

Wow!  This thing is the Energizer bunny of cheap multis!

[Nhoj]

Yeah campy!

[Jothra]

I admit readily that over the first couple of weeks, I didn't think Campy was going to make it. But, as it turns out, where it's really shining is in the really brutal stuff that no tool should have to face. It can't do fine work for anything, but it can chop survey stakes in half. Lengthwise. It's surprising me exactly the same way Coghlan the Army Knife did.

[Chako]

Well if this tool can survive this...any tool made out there can.

[Gareth]

Well done Campy!   Superb reading as always Jothra.

[Jothra]

Thanks, all!

Now, I know this is only a 30 day challenge, but I'm going camping and scrambling this weekend, so I'm giving Campy two bonus days. What better way to end it all than on a camping trip?

[Lynn LeFey]

Going camping: Campy's reward for a job... emm... adequately? done.

[Gareth]

Going camping: Campy's reward for a job... emm... adequately? done.

[firiki]

I knew the fish scaler couldn't be completely useless!
Thanks for the great review, I had never heard of that Coglan brand before.
I hope you enjoy your camping time; I could use some right now. 

[Jothra]

Okay, here's your only warning, and it's going to be in Rubric Red:
Near the end of this post, I do something absolutely unthinkable to this tool. Never treat a tool this way. I've done a watered-down, less ridiculous version of this with my Kick and Wave in the (somewhat distant now) past. There is always a better tool for this job. Don't do it.
There. Read on.

Day 29 was mostly more of the same at work, with a few familiar chores, and a few new ones. The one familiar thing Campy did over and over is cutting through that rigid insulation.


It's no saw, but it's better than using my teeth. Or someone else's teeth.

At this end of the building, several column bases were filled with gravel and dried mud. These had to be cleaned out for the grout, because a hard candy grout coating with a soft chewy mud centre is bad news. My oddly versatile margin trowel could get most of it, but some spots were easier with the longest non-blade tool Campy holds:


The fish scaler again? I'm as surprised as anyone, I swear!

The fish scaler is, after all, just a scraping tool, although it's normally for scraping an animal much less gritty than muddy concrete.

Wind? Well, I didn't realize it was in the forecast, but you work with what you can get. Why is this important? Because the door of the big job trailer was flapping ungracefully as it was buffeted by an unrelenting, invisible foe. I had to use some tie wire to make an Open Latch thingy for it.


Hey, the cutters are still good! Also, the lack of hard-wire cutters is still fine with me.

I also used the pliers to double up the wire, twist it into a big loop, and twist one end onto a fastener under the trailer, but close enough to loop around the door's closure bar, holding the whole thing safely open. This may not seem important, but you might not think it funny when you suddenly get trapped in a trailer as the wind slams the door shut—with enough force to knock it into a locked position from the outside. Trust me, it's not something you want to do twice.


After wrapping up the last of the grouting, it was time for knocking off more leftover form pins. The problem is that some doofus, thinking he was being clever, had knocked them all flat against the foundation, so I couldn't hit them far enough to break. I couldn't even squeeze the claw of the hammer behind six of these bent pins. I needed something to wedge behind them, like a crappy chisel, or...you know what? Who am I kidding? You've already figured out where I'm going with this.

The faint of heart may wish to look away.


Bang. Bang. Bang. Now you know why I wrote my warning in red.

There's a little scarring around the ends of the handles, because framing hammers have knurled striking faces. The plier/handle pivots loosened a bit, but were good as new after a little peening. Other than that, no new tool damage to report.

Try not to cry too much for Campy. It's in good company now, since my Kick (five years ago) and my Wave (three years ago) did something similar when I needed to peel layers of tin off of different surfaces. Neither of those cases, however, required this much force or this much hammer. This is the one task Campy has performed that I have never really asked of another tool. Ever.

What an end to Day 29!

[enki_ck]

Now that's torture testing.

[Nhoj]

Well campy is no elegant pearl scaled sak but he gets the job done!

[Lynn LeFey]

There are a number of downsides to the design used to make Campy, but the simplicity of it lends itself to being... emmm... 'mistreated' and surviving (mostly) unscathed.

[Grathr]

 
I guess this is one of the good reasons to actually buy cheapo MT's.
You can mistreat them like you would not have the heart to do with a pricy one.

[Jothra]

Ironically, I just dented the handle nicely by dropping it two feet onto a hammer. Really.

[Jothra]

It's Day 30, and to start things off we find out that Campy's knife blade is still sharp enough to sharpen a big construction pencil, but not sharp enough to cut human flesh.


You'll have to take my word for the human flesh thing.

I'm absolutely serious when I say this blade cannot cut skin, no matter how carelessly I handle the thing. The point at the end could do some pointy-type damage, but this knife is really as dull as it gets. Pencils sure are made of soft wood.

Further to my quick post earlier today, this:


Oh mercy me! The horror!

I went to take Campy from my right front pocket, and it accidentally flew to the ground, landing on my 28 ounce Estwing. Now, if the Estwing had landed on Campy, I would have expected the damage, but this is ridiculous. I can hammer Campy like a chisel to no real ill effect, but I can't drop it two feet without causing a weapons-grade structural implosion? I was speechless. We're lucky I gathered my wits long enough to take a picture.

At home (about twenty minutes ago, actually), I used my Leatherman Rebar to bend Campy's handle back out. It was much harder than caving it in had been.


Well, it could be worse. Probably. If I was on fire or something maybe.

The tools are all accessible again, though the only one I regularly use on that side of that handle is the can opener. Amazingly, there's no new pivot wobble anywhere. Campy really dodged a bullet on this one. In a stroke of luck, I didn't need any pliers today, so my Evo s18 took over Campy's duties for the afternoon. I had almost forgotten the joy of having a super-sharp, durable blade.

Coming up tomorrow...Bonus Day 1!

[Nhoj]

Campy nooooo! I guess he finally met his match. He needs to be put in a special place where you can remember him forever! Wow, I liked your sak clone thread, but I actually got emotionally attached to campy!

[Jothra]

Campy nooooo! I guess he finally met his match. He needs to be put in a special place where you can remember him forever! Wow, I liked your sak clone thread, but I actually got emotionally attached to campy!

Campy's match was gravity. Ha ha!

No problem though, because it's back in (approximate) fighting form, and ready for camping.

FYI, it's still meeting my intial condition for success—the pliers are still working just fine. As a bonus, the oddest tools keep proving useful.

[Jothra]

30 Day Coghlan's Campers Tool Challenge: A Nightmare in Steel!

I'm going to approximate the review format from last time, because consistency is the key to consistency!

Overview

Three multitool buddies? I'll bet they don't ever buy each other drinks.

Like my last 30-day challenge, this one felt like a million days. The tools I ended up testing regularly changed drastically from the beginning of the challenge to the end. For the first couple of weeks, I spent most of my time teaching, so Campy the Camper's Tool spent time on domestic, and often delicate, chores. For the last little while, it was CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION and there was no such thing as a delicate and dainty task anymore. This mix of work types has led to some interesting discoveries about the Coghlan's Campers Tool, for better or for worse.

I spent a lot of time on the pliers, blade, can opener, and (shockingly) the fish scaler. I made serious attempts with the Phillips driver, the awl, the small blade (more of an un-sharpened reamer), and the bottle opener/screwdriver, with varying degrees of success.

Like my earlier Army Knife, the Campers Tool tool cost $6 at Wholesale Sports, which, despite the name, still does not sell things wholesale.

Tool review

I may as well get this out of the way: Campy's tools do not lock. They don't friction lock, slip-joint lock, frame lock, liner lock, vapour lock, Jude Lawk, or lox and bagels. They are free to do whatever they want, whenever they want. I'm going to try not to dwell too much on this, because I'm announcing right here and now that many of the tools on this product are not safe to use.


This grapefruit, though magically delicious, looks like it was cut by beavers.

The blade was very disappointing. I was hoping for the same shocking success I achieved with the same company's swiss army knife knockoff, but not a chance. On several occasions, I had to resharpen the blade after cutting fruit. I don't mean pineapples, coconuts, or the mystical Uru Rockfruit, but grapefruits, oranges and apples. This did not, however, keep the blade from performing feats of terrifying strength, such as cutting aluminum pop cans or batoning survey stakes. Unfortunately, these successes aren't enough to make up for a blade duller than a seven-hour movie about denture cream. You cannot trust this blade. Mission Failed!


Being a good batoning tool is like being good at opening beer bottles with your teeth.

The last time I reviewed a tool with a fish scaler, all I could think to post was this:


It's a coelacanth!

This time, however, I can also post a picture of the stupid thing cutting its way through rigid insulation, or a picture of it scraping crud out from under column bases, or some other lame but important task it actually did well. There were almost certainly better tools for these jobs, but the fish scaler was there, and it got things done! I never used the file or ruler on it, because the file was too rugged for fingernails and the ruler was short and in the wrong scale for most of what I do, but I don't think I can hold those against the fish scaler itself. Hilarious success!


Anyone who thinks he or she saw this coming has never tried to think of a valid use for a fish scaler before.

The can opener is exactly what it says on the tin. Success? Sure, why not?


Doesn't everybody open their Pepsi cans like this?

The small blade was a reasonable reamer, but the actual awl made a terrible...well...awl. I used it as a marlinspike once, but even that threatened Finger-Smashing Time without some kind of lock. Reaming-type success, awly-type failure!


The reamer could ream this hole, but the awl sure couldn't punch it! Thanks, LM Rebar!

The Phillips driver was a smelly jerk. I never once managed to use it without this exact result:

It felt like getting nibbled by a tiny little Daspletosaurus. Super-pinchy failure!

The bottle opener could open bottles! Yeah! But unfortunately, it was only good as a screwdriver when the object it needed to turn offered no resistance whatsoever. I know I didn't want to harp on the locking thing, but this time it was really a killer. Mostly failure!


The only thing it successfully turned—the most important lock on the whole construction site!

I never once used the small slot screwdriver, since it was too large for glasses screws and too small for regular-type screw. Fai-diddly-ailure!

The pliers/wire cutters are a redeeming feature here. Instead of giving a play-by-play, let me just post a bunch of pictures of the pliers doing things:


Folding aluminum can? Anyone can do that!


Resizing metal watch bands? Okay, that's kind of useful.


"Cutting how much tie wire? Okay, impressive...maybe..."


"Wait, are you...are you cutting wood? Why would you..."


"...What are you even doing here? Where's the grinder tool? Have you lost your..."


"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

These pliers/wire cutters are Campy's greatest asset, bar none. These pliers are amazing. These pliers are so amazing that they are actually writing this sentence, and are doing so in the third person. Success, success, success!

Finally, down to fit and finish, we have a few problems. The first, and most obvious, is the lack of any locking tools. Another is the lack of folded-over handle edges, which make this thing a bit hard to squeeze too hard. On the other hand, while the plier/handle pivots loosened up a bit over time, they were easy to peen tighter, and only loosened seriously after that ridiculous hammer-and-chisel thing (which is the only test Campy received to a degree that most of my tools hopefully never will). As another nice bonus, the brand name (Coghlan's, remember?) is stamped into the handle for super durability, and the implements and handle came nice and straight in the tool. Unfortunately, there was a slight durability problem that manifested itself in a surprising way:


Other multitools have survived falls from buildings, but this one bent like crazy-go-nuts from a two-foot drop!

With a bit more effort than I expected, and some help from another tool, the bent handle was fixed, though I don't know if it will ever quite be the same. Overall, fit and finish get a probationary passing grade, but only barely. Probationary passing grade, but only barely!

Takeaway
I'm going to admit to the same two things as last time, and then I'm going to add another comment.

The first is that if a single tool on a multitool doesn't work or has no conceivable use, I usually pick another multitool. A fish scaler? Please. More importantly, the scissors are a minor dealbreaker, and the saw is a huge dealbreaker. The fact that neither of these tools will work well in the long run gives me pause.

The second is that I beat the stuffing out of my multitools. Every pocket knife and multitool I carry is a user, and I treat them accordingly. My Leatherman Wave went through five years of basically the exact same hell as Campy (albeit not in quite the same compressed fashion), and only finally broke this year:


Fetch me a bugle!

All of the Wave's tools are still functional, except for the now-broken pliers. Campy's tools, however, were mostly useless or even dangerous right out of the box. Campy, is down to one really useful tool, a tiny number of useable ones, and a whole lot of dead weight.

My extra comment this time is about how you use your tools. The real trick is to use the tools you have, and not the tools you want. Maybe a fish scaler will work just fine for cutting insulation, but a functional saw would work better. No saw? Scale away! The point here is that sometimes a tool only comes in handy because you don't have a better tool with you. In these cases it's hard to give too much credit to the less efficient but more available tool.

So what does all this mean?
A Coglan's Camper's Tool is absolutely not a suitable replacement for a higher quality multitool, especially with certain full-size multitools starting at less than $30. If you want a pair of folding pliers you can count on in an emergency, a tool like Campy will suit you just fine. If you want a function-laden tool to help you solve your everyday problems, look elsewhere. If you want a tool you can beat to within an inch of its life without worrying about its long-term survival, the Campers Tool might be for you. If you want a tool with a knife that can cut anything harder than Cheetos, look elsewhere. If you want a tool with a dull knife that can nevertheless baton wood, maybe this is the tool you've been looking for your whole life.

Honestly (again with the honesty!), I expected this tool to fail 100%. Tools started failing me on the very first day. I never expected to get any real use out of it, though in the end, when I really needed a total beater tool, Campy was there. So, credit where credit is due: I can't recommend the Coghlan's Campers Tool as a proper carrying tool, but it can certainly take a beating. As pliers or a blunt instrument on the wrong end of a hammer, yes, as anything else, no.

Regardless of its overall lack of quality, Campy the Coghlan's Campers Tool has earned its mission-end camping trip, and can now walk off into the sunset at the end of the historic Seige of Campy!

[enki_ck]

It's been fun reading up on Campy's adventures. Thanks for doing this, it's been a great thread.

[Lynn LeFey]

In these cases it's hard to give too much credit to the less efficient but more available tool.

I agree with everything you've posted concerning tools, except this statement. Multitools are, almost inevitably the 'less efficient but more available tool'.

While I don't work construction (so haven't subjected mine to such heavy duty work), I found some use in the drivers, using the flathead to change the air filter on our lawn mower, for instance.

You have done us all in incredible service in testing this tool. It's really strange that it seems to work better at taking punishment than performing normal function. I think that speaks to the basic design, inherited from the PST. Now I'm wondering what kind of abuse a REAL PST could handle. 

[Jothra]

Fair enough, but I think I meant that I still can't stand fish scalers. I'm not totally sure. I wrote all this at 2:00 a.m.

Edit: I really don't know what I was trying to say there. It bugs me, because misusing tools is basically all I do.

Autre edit: A PST would deserve better than I could offer it.

[Lynn LeFey]

Fair enough, but I think I meant that I still can't stand fish scalers. I'm not totally sure. I wrote all this at 2:00 a.m.

  Right there with you.

[Chako]

This was a fun read. I have one of these...and I must say , the sheet metal handles are super thin. Not surprised about the dent to the handles after falling on a hammer. 

[Nhoj]

We salute you campy

[Lynn LeFey]

For some reason, I now hear AC/DC singing 'For those about to rust, WE SALUTE YOU!'