Cull Update

[AimlessWanderer]

There are several fantastic threads here at MTO, documenting the growing collections of various members. I accumulated a stupid number of tools over the years, but never really did that, as I didn't see myself as a collector, just an undisciplined and rapidly accumulating user

Now however, I'm going the other way, and have been gradually and selectively scaling down, and trying to zone in on my absolute favourites along the way. Many tools have already gone, tools which I personally will not miss for various reasons, but ones that I hope are welcome additions to their new owners' hoard of tools.

The work is not yet done, and many tough decisions are yet to be taken, but I'm down to the ones that all have far worth to me, than the ones I've already parted with. That worth might me pride, scarcity, or just the fact that it's been a damn good tool for me.

Over the following posts, I'll go over where that journey has led so far, upload piccies, and maybe share a few words as to why these items have survived the cull so far.

[AimlessWanderer]

The easiest ones to part with, were the locking knives. As a dedicated slipjoint user, I found locks to be more hassle and hazard than safety mechanism, even though health issues have left me less coordinated and more accident prone than I used to be.

I can do all the cutting tasks that I'd use a locking blade for, just as efficiently and safely with a slippie. There's also the additional aspect, that I might have more questions asked of me with a locking blade, than I would with a slippie.

So the remaining selection is pretty lean. A couple of utility blade knives, namely the Gerber EAB and EAB Lite, and a cheapo off-brand liner lock knife, which was the first knife I ever bought myself. These knives are the ones that get used for nasty jobs, that I don't want to wreck my nicer knives on.

[SteveC]

Good thread Al and nice to see you posting again !   

[AimlessWanderer]

While I don't like locking blades, a pocket clipped OHO folder is still very nice to have at times. Thankfully, there have been a lot more knives over recent years which have enabled these features, been good reliable users, and stayed within the realms of being UK legal (which are in-line with my preferences for a pocket knife anyway).

I prefer slippies, and have no need of a pocket knife with a blade bigger than 3", so these modern folders not only keep me legal, but also fit my needs and preferences very well indeed.

Many have come and gone, and all the ones that remain, are the type where it's the presence of your own hand, which prevents inadvertent closure. Not that i've needed that, I don't think these knives have ever tried to close on me like that, but I do like the grip they afford, and the security of not letting my finger ride up onto the blade if I'm doing a penetrating or scoring cut with wet or greasy hands.

Most of these are also low end knife steels. I prefer ease of sharpening, ability to steel an edge, and resistance to chipping over marathon edge retention.

[AimlessWanderer]

Good thread Al and nice to see you posting again !   

Cheers Steve 

Pocket tools are less of a focal point for me than they used to be, but I'll keep drifting in and out 

[Aloha]

I always appreciate your perspective.   .   

[AimlessWanderer]

So far as more traditional pocket knives go, I'll always have a bit of a soft spot for knives from my home town. I don't have a huge array of those, but won't be culling them further either.

Some of these do get regular carry, and others not so much, if at all. Everything that had more than two blades has gone though. Not just with my Sheffield knives, but my other traditional's too. Gone are the Stockman and Whittler style knives, and it's the one and two bladed knives which are here to stay.

The buffalo horn IXL and two carbon steel knives are the ones that win most carry time. There's a simplicity to them, but also capability and reliability. They've always done what I've asked of them, and for me they are the ideal size for a general use knife.

[AimlessWanderer]

I always appreciate your perspective.   .   

Thanks Aloha 

[AimlessWanderer]

Outside of the Sheffield knives, Case knives have a strong appeal for me. I've found their blades to be very reliable in use, and a good balance of performance and ease of maintenance.

The herringbone barlow shown in the picture is a particular favourite of mine, and has quite a bit of pocket wear from all the days it's spent with me. The barlow with the scrolled bolsters has tended to find its way into waistcoat pockets when I've been suited up. The same function and reliability of its herringbone sibling, with a little more refined elegance.

The Soddie Jr is a knife that should win more pocket time than it does. It is a very comfortable knife to hold, I do have to be careful about corrosion with that one though. Not having the same polish as it's stablemates, I have had to chase away a little bit of staining and brown fur occasionally

The Scout Jr is a lovely little knife. It's the only non-Swiss multifunction knife that wins pocket time from me, and is part of my "outdoors" kit, due to its high visibility. In fact, at the UK meet, with the abundance of knives and multitools I had with me, the Scout Jr was the one in my pocket for opening packets of food

[AimlessWanderer]

Here's the rest of the slippies that have survived the cull.

The Nieto Manolina is certainly my favourite of this bunch. Not having liners, it is an incredibly light knife, but no less functional, capable, or reliable. Like the herringbone barlow shown earlier, and the three single bladed Sheffield knives, it has had a lot of time in the pocket, and is a knife I'll never sell.

The SanRenMu HO2 knives on the other hand, are ones I've never really gotten that attached to. While they have had a bit of pocket carry, they tend to be overlooked in favour of something else. The only reason they're still here is that they are so cheap, and have little resale value. That said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with them at all, I just like some of my others a lot more.

The Camillus electricians knife, is my tobacco knife. It breaks open vacuum sealed tins, dispenses snuff into my snuffboxes, cube cuts flake for the pipe, but never makes it to the pocket. It stays with my other tobacco paraphernalia to handle whatever's needed.

The Boker+ Tech Tool knife, is the one that keeps the Soddie Jr out of the pocket. Almost identical blade, but better polished, and the pocket clip gives me a little security against it falling out of my pocket. The glassbreaking nub on the bottom has been removed, and is much more comfortable to use as a result.

[AimlessWanderer]

So without counting the Swiss knives, that's all the pocket knives that have survived the journey so far - well not quite all - but most of them. There's an Opinel or two kicking around somewhere, and a couple of Rough Riders too, again, they don't tend to get awarded pocket time, but are too cheap to bother selling. The postage cost would be higher than the knife itself.

While each picture I've uploaded has less than 10 knives (I think, I didn't count), the total quantity of my pocket knives still feels like too much for my current lifestyle. The cheaper ones will probably get given away in time, and the others will be harder to choose from to sell or otherwise let go of. After all, that's why they're still here today

In time, I hope to let this dwindle further though, and just be left with the ones that I've gotten most attached to.

[AimlessWanderer]

Moving onto the Swiss knives, my array has seen a lot of changes here too, and there will be more changes to come in time.

Like many of us, I've dabbled with a bit of modding, and hope to do more in future once I've gotten a few real life challenges out of the way. There are a few stock models that have stayed the course too though.

So far as 91mm knives go, the Cybertool 41, Voyager Lite, Original Outdoorsman and Compact (not shown - it resides permanently in a first aid kit), have all proven their worth.

The horn scaled Huntsman is a bit of a head scratcher. It's nearly been sold a few times, because it never makes it out of the box. Why? Because it's a Huntsman, not a Climber, and I don't have regular use for a saw. That really shouldn't make that much difference, but for some reason it has. It has been the most "shall I, shalln't I" knife of indecision that I think I've ever owned, and while it never gets carried, there's a lingering feeling that I might regret selling it, so it's still here - for now.

The smaller ones with the most pocket time though, and the cream of the crop have been as follows, from left to right:

Clipper - which resides in my travel washkit.
Climber Small - Fantastic little knife!
Brushed stainless Traveler, Soft Touch 14, Evowood 14 - the three versions of the Wenger Traveler that I couldn't bring myself to part with.
Salesman - one of the very few backspring Phillips knives that get carried. I need to do a little work on the scissors on this one, but otherwise another excellent little knife.
Brushed stainless PTC. If you ever see me in evening suit and black tie, you can be pretty sure that'll be in the waistcoat pocket.

[AimlessWanderer]

I've only done three mods so far, and ech one of them is only Stage 1 in their development. Proof of concept if you will. In time there will be more refinements made.

The Sheepsfoot Duke has had the "children's" knife reground to something more versatile, but the rest of the knife remains stock. The Mega84 is a composite of every tool I wanted on the 84mm frame, with the exception of a metal file, which I was unable to source at a price I was willing to pay. The Traveller that had the Phillips and carabiner added, left me bereft of a suitable name, so I just call it Brian.

All these have been a functional success, and have seen a fair bit of pocket time. I'm not sure when I'll get round to the rest of the modifications planned for these three, but Ill continue to give them some carry time until I get round to it.

[AimlessWanderer]

This is the pile of donors. There's also a tub of spare parts that will play a role in future mods too. Some of these parts will be destined for the three mods shown in the previous post, and from the rest, at least four more mods will be born.

I'll not bother doing an "all my Swiss knives in one pic" post, as the mod fodder kind of messes with the whole concept. Eventually, once all the mods are done, I'll line all of them up together, to see if and how they cluster can be reduced further.

[AimlessWanderer]

In much the same vein as the start of this thread, I don't need pliers based tools with locking knife blades. Where practical, I have either offloaded the ones with locking blades, or modified them into knifeless tools. I tend not to use the knife blades on pliers tools anyway, and out of habit, I reach for the accompanying Swiss knife, or whatever other pocket knife I have with me. So culling anything with a locking blade which couldn't easily be modified was easy.

Out of the several dozens of tools which have passed this way since me being a member here, there's only two locking blade tools still here, which would ever leave the house with me. The attached picture shows both the one I carry (X), and the one that stays at home in its box in reserve (RT).

[AimlessWanderer]

Of the stock multitools I've used over the years, there are very few which have stayed the course with me, which I would carry as an urban tool.

The Knifeless Fuse went, as did the PSTs that passed my way. The Mini Tool was a contender for awhile, but it was kicked out of bed for the Sideclip. I had tried the Sideclip before and passed up on it, before I realised the smallest driver on there was so much more versatile for odd jobs (particularly electrical jobs) than the PSTs. After I got my replacement Sideclip, I happened one day to weight up the pros and cons of it, in relation to the Mini Tool.

The Sideclip was easier to carry, slimmer, had the pocket clip, and was a lot more versatile. The Phillips meant that I could carry a slimmer Swiss knife, and just like the Mini Tool, it was compatible with the Tool Adapter that takes hex bits. I sold the Mini Tool shortley after, and have found the Sideclip, to be an excellent companion to a slim (three layers or less) Swiss knife with scissors.

I tried the Juice line many times, desperately trying to like the CS4 and XE6. I couldn't do it. While the promise of the tool was great, the failings of what was actually made, never failed to disappoint. Eventually I settled on the KF4 as a "light hike" companion to the yellow Climber Small shown earlier. Symmetrical handles, all the good tools, no crappy scissors or openers, and a role in life that meant I'm highly unlikely to ever need to get those profanity inducing drivers out.

Finally, we have the Balance. The only one of my pliers tools that I'll carry, without an accompanying knife. The build quality isn't as robust as many others, but as an urban tool, it's perfectly adequate. I ended up replacing my much loved MP700s with this tool, simply because of that non-locking blade. The one handed pliers are very useful too.

[AimlessWanderer]

Aside from those stock models, I'm just as likely to carry one on my knifeless mods. Not only do they remove a knife i'd hardly ever use from the equation, but they replace it with something else which my accompanying knife tool might not have.

It's probably worth giving each of these tools, a post of their own.

[AimlessWanderer]

The MP400 modification is a long term favourite of mine, and is the one I tend to reach for most, if I'm carrying a traditional knife or pocket clipped folder, instead of a Swiss knife.

The single overriding reason that I carry a Swiss knife to often, is the scissors. Nobody else makes scissors that come close, and I never carry a Victorinox or Wenger that doesn't have them. The MP400 scissors, while a step down from the Swiss knives, are good enough to see me through, and a pocket knife is really the only other tool needed.

It's pocket friendly, reliable, and rugged enough for most urban tasks. It's rare that I need a screwdriver that's longer than the ones on here, and overall, it's a good reliable workhorse of a tool. Even before I left the engineering and marine environments I used to spend a lot of time in, if I got there and realised I'd pocketed the MP400 that morning, instead of something more heavily laden, it would typically get me through the day just fine.

[AimlessWanderer]

The Neutered Octane as I call it, not only has had the blade removed, but also had the Phillips replaced too. The ones that comes on the tool as standard, isn't all that great.

This isn't a tool that gets as much carry time as others. The two reasons that I would reach for this tool over others, is if I wanted the slimmest possible companion tool (with pliers and Phillips) for a Swiss knife (it's even slimmer than a Sideclip now the blade has gone), or if I wanted an immediate access bottle opener, for garden parties, BBQs and the like.

Nowadays, it has a much less glamorous role in life. It spends most of its life on a shelf in the bathroom, and is used for fetching my shed long hair out of the plugholes.

[AimlessWanderer]

The Leatherman Wave was one of the most awesome tools on the market, until it too got afflicted with the indexable cutters overhanging the main gripping area (a major deal breaker for me), and was one of my most carried tools when I was running an engineering facility.

As that phase of my life came to a close, and I moved into lighter production facilities (ironically working with and visiting MUCH heavier engineering facilities), I wanted to move the tool to a knifeless format, so I could carry it more often. I also wanted to have the dedicated drivers from the Blast family, instead of the bit drivers.

In fairness, this modification could still do with a couple more tweaks, the diamond file and saw are a little tricky to get out since I moved them to the knife slots to make space for thescissors and prybar, and the handles are left very slightly open with the pliers folded away. However, it's still a very good tool, and one I'm pleased to have around, when I want something a little more tool heavy.

[AimlessWanderer]

The TurboDiesel is one of the least modified tools. It only lost the knife and lanyard rind to make way for the blade exchanger. It was one of the primary tools in a little grab bag that I used to use when visiting friends and family, especially when I know odd jobs would likely need doing. That role has now gone too, but it's such a good tool, i'm loathed to part with it.

As highlighted in another thread of mine a few years ago when comparing the ergonomics of a wide range of multitools, the Diesel had by far the most comfortable handles when using the main gripping area. It's also one of the few full sized Gerbers that has the woodsaw, with the Strata being the other. The tool is to my mind a better alternative than the knifeless MP600 offered by Gerber, due to the absence of the evaporating carbide cutters. That said, the Diesel shouldn't be used for hard wire cutting, as the geometry of the cutters is all wrong for that.

So now, this is a bit of a "solution looking for a problem" type tool, but too damn good to let go of. Another minor weakspot on this tool is the 2.5D Phillips, whose form is rather like one of the Leatherman bits. However, in that grab bag, I also had a bit adapter, and a range of 1/4" bits. If I keep this tool, but not the whole grab bag, I might be better off replacing the Phillips with a full 3D one.

[AimlessWanderer]

The MP6000 is another tool I don't have much use for at the moment, but is far too awesome to get rid of. It takes the tank like MP600, and adds a lot of function that just isn't available on them today.

Blunt nosed pliers with integral cutters, diamond file, awl, woodsaw and tweezers, all go towards making this tool 10x better than a regular stock MP600 for me (hence the naming as MP6000). I also have in my parts bin, a regular plier head with integral cutters, in case I want to ditch the blunt nosed pliers in future.

[AimlessWanderer]

The final one of the urban knifeless mods is this Fuse-ilier mod. This is why I sold my NIB stock Knifeless Fuse. For being outdoors in a public setting, such as camping or hiking anywhere there's likely to be others (I'm never going to venture anywhere remote), this is typically my first choice. Paired with the Case Scout Jr, and the Vagnino Zipslip (orange clipped folder from post #4), or even the Mora Hi Vis fixed blade, this is the "fully loaded" equivalent of the KF4 and Climber Small combo I mentioned earlier. both those combos are used less than they're carried, but just like a first aid kit, are worth their weight, just for peace of mind.

[AimlessWanderer]

On top of all those options for pocket carry, there's also a few tools that never leave home. These just sit on or near the desk, in case I need something special a regular multi can't provide, namely heavy duty shears, compound leverage pliers, or locking pliers. I don't actually have any dedicated tools to compete with those functions that these multitools provide.

[AimlessWanderer]

So just like the other stuff I mentioned before, this all adds up to way more than I could possibly need, but dropping down lower than this, means taking some VERY tough decisions. I'd like to get this down further, probably to around half, but there's none of them I want to part with.

In time, it will dwindle, I'm sure. However, I need to wait for one of those Eureka moments, where I pick up a tool and ask myself "why do I still own this? I'll never use it". Maybe I ought to force myself to start carrying them all more, and see which ones I get sick of quickest.

[Smashie]

A lot of tough decisions to make, but you seem to have made them for all the right reasons

[AimlessWanderer]

Fixed blades are exactly the same too. Way more than I need, but none I can single out as wanting to part with.

[AimlessWanderer]

A lot of tough decisions to make, but you seem to have made them for all the right reasons

Yes indeed. I have come a long way already, and obviously what all these picture's DON'T show, is just how many tools have already been moved on. They were the easy decisions, and these are FAR harder. From my perspective, this is the cream of the crop. However, I thought it might be of interest to some here, to show just what my top tool choices would be, if I was a little more active than I am today. This is probably less than a quarter of everything I've owned, and I haven't even touched on the keyring stuff yet.

I've gotten rid of Charges, Waves, Rebars, Core, ST300, Pulse, PST I & II, Juice, Fuse, Blast, Kick, Swisstool, Swissgrips, different Spirits, assorted SOGs, many many Gerbers, Bear Tools, CRKT offerings, and a load of other stuff I can't recall at the minute. This is the stuff that beat them all in terms of my own personal needs preferences. This is the stuff that saved the day countless times, be it at work, at play, or just helping friends and family through their life challenges. I appreciate much of this won't be to everyone's taste, and many would have gotten rid of these, and kept some of the other stuff instead, but for me this is all tried and tested tooling, and throughout the various little triumphs that i've had in life, this is the gear that did it

[Happy Gilmore]

This discussion has made me realize.. are there any knifeless multi-tools that have outside facing tools? Seems like a quick deploy outside facing tool would be great.

[AimlessWanderer]

This discussion has made me realize.. are there any knifeless multi-tools that have outside facing tools? Seems like a quick deploy outside facing tool would be great.

There's small ones, like the knifeless version of the Dime and the Style PS. There's also the newer versions of the Sync that have just been announced. However, no "full sized" external access knifeless tools spring to mind.