I bought this little knife for $3 on eBay. Yes, three bucks. It's a 91mm, and is assembled with bushings and rivets like a Victorinox. The bushings are smaller in diameter, but the scale presses on the same way as Victorinox scales. Interestingly enough, this isn't just a copy of a Vic, though. Many of the tools open completely backwards! This means the backsprings are redesigned, and not just Vic copies. The saw and pliers open from the fat side, like a Victorinox. However, the main blade also opens from the fat side. The scissors open from the thin side (they open from the fat side on a Vic) and there's a pair of side cutters that also open from the thin side. Because of clearance issues with the side cutters, the middle rivet (bushed on a Vic) does not protrude past the liner for the side cutters, and therefore does not go all the way through the knife. In the last pic you can see part of the handle for the cutters through the hole where a rivet would normally be. There are no backspring tools, and no cutouts for them, so both scales are identical.
This thing has a surprising quality feel to it. The knife is visibly dirty as hell and there is corrosion on most of the tools. However, all the backsprings snap open and closed with a resoundingly good feel. The blade has a factory edge, and though there is a little bit of corrosion on the edge itself, it can still cut through paper with relative ease. It's not quite as thick as a vic blade, and is a little more bendy, however. The pliers aren't as thick as Vic pliers, but they do have a very nice needle nose shape. They're more like tweezers, as they have no nut turning ability whatsoever. Nor are there any teeth to speak of. The scissors are surprisingly good, cutting right through paracord in one snip, just like Vic scissors. They have a very similar shape, and pivot on a screw instead of a rivet. The saw has no nail nick, and does not extend out past the end of the backspring, so the only way to get it out is with a different tool. It has an inch ruler etched on one side. It is the same shape and size, though the tooth spacing is different. Both saws have 29 teeth, but the teeth on this saw are closer together, and there is more flat space on either end of the blade. Instead of a second small blade, there's just a brass bushing taking up space -- though there is a spacer with a keychain connection where a Vic would have a spacer for the small blade.
All of that's well and good, but what's really interesting are the side cutters. They work really, really well on small wires. There's a little notch for stripping wire, and that works well. They cut small and medium zip ties too. They cut bare stranded wire easily. However, anything that wouldn't fit in the cutter portion of Wenger pliers cannot be easily cut with these. And wires that are at the maximum for the Wenger cutters are really difficult to cut with these. There's just not enough leverage available with those tiny handles. I can make it through 14ga wire with several attempts, but it's not fun, and my thumb hurts afterwards.
The springs to the pliers, scissors, and wire cutters are junk Chinese springs, but it looks like standard Victorinox scissor springs will work. The nail nicks are really low on all the blade, pliers, and wire cutters, making extracting the tools with short nails difficult. I'd want to take a file to these to trim down some material. All the tools have a bead-blasted finish, nothing is polished. I'm quite pleased with this $3 purchase, it's a fun little knife and I'm going to clean it up and maybe use it in a Victorinox mod. Those wire cutters and some of the reverse-opening backsprings may see use in a custom knife!
Charles.
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