Stanley 5-in-1 folding plier tool

[gerleatherberman]

I am not 100% sure, but I think this is either th Stanley 5-in-1 or 6-in-1 tool. I bought it some time ago at wal-mart on clearance for $5. At the time, I didn't know much about MTs and what makes one a quality tool. Now, after digging it out and playing with it, I am impressed.
The tools:

Pliers:
Tight and have no play. Wire cutters are tight and cut 18-2 wire without issue. I will try some 24g wire at some point though. But, you can visibly see the cutters have marks on eachother that indicate they are very tight. The jaws line up perfectly as well. The handle folds out and rotates the plier head out. The handle is not comfortable,  but works for the intended purpose.
File:
It has two sides and both are cross-cut. Now, this is normally fine, except I cannot tell much of a difference in the cut on both sides. It seems to be the same pattern.
The file is mildly aggressive and looks to be of o.k. quality. The tip looks like a medium flat-blade driver that has a grind on one size and has good definition.
Saw:
Teeth are decently cut and the spine is thinner than the teeth. Length of pretty good as well.
Blade:
Fairly sharp and has a high-polish.

What blew me away about it was the fit and finish on the exterior. The handles are high-polished black plastic with Stanley stamped on both handles.
The back springs are beautifully ground down to be nearly perfectly flush. Tools like these generally have really poor quality handles and back-springs, so this one is surprising.
Pics 1, 2, & 3.

[gerleatherberman]

Pics 4, 5, & 6.

[ReamerPunch]

From the pics I think the pliers handle is too far away from the body when opened.
It looks like the backsprings make up for it. 

[gerleatherberman]

It looks worse than it feels in hand. I have medium-large hands and think it would be fine for smaller hands with light-duty tasks. The plier design, inherently, is not going to lend the tool to anything more than light duty tasks anyway. 

[ChopperCharles]

Interesting. I have an Ace Hardware branded version of this tool, in red. Mine is not so great. It was brand new in the blisterpack, and yet the tip of the blade was bent. The tools in mine are a little thinner than the backsprings, which gives the tool a slightly trapezoidal shape when looking at it on end. This, coupled with the super-strong backsprings, makes the tools difficult to remove. Real nail-breakers.  The saw in mine also has a nail nick on the side, instead of at the tip like yours does. This essentially means I should have to open the plier handle and the main blade to be able to access the saw... but handle kinda gets in the way too. So the only way to extract it is to open all the other tools, and grasp the saw on both sides and pull it up that way. Or just use a key from my keyring to pry it up. The file and saw work really nicely, the wire cutters in the pliers are also excellent. It's a heavy hunk of steel and aluminum that feels good in the hand... and I have fantasies of throwing it and knocking someone out cold. Or maybe I feel deep down like the usefulness is akin to a brick, I'm not sure. I would never EDC or probably even ever use this tool, even though the file and saw are good, the pliers and wire cutters work, and the blade is sharp (and I fixed the bend). It's too hard to open, too heavy, and I have other multis with similar tool loads that are more pleasant to use.

Charles.

[gerleatherberman]

Thank you for the info, Charles!

The Stanley version, at least the ones I have, seems to be an improved version of what you have described. The back-spring grind says a lot about this tool, and the rest of it seems well thought out, except for the plier handle, but there isn't much improvement that could be made, considering the nature of the plier system. The tools on the Stanley have a good synergy of snap and ease of opening. Similar to a SAK. Now, with that said, my example may not be indicative of the general quality of the tool. I may have purchased an anomaly. 

[ChopperCharles]

Also, the handles on the Ace hardware version are aluminum, not plastic.

Charles.