My first Swisstool was a 'bay auction that I stumbled across with a Make Offer button a few years ago. The seller had 4 for sale and I offered $30 plus $5 shipping and it was accepted. So, I bought two of them from the same guy at $35 each. I was ecstatic. I could finally see what all the fuss was about.
A very good deal I thought for a used tool with the older plier head. Well, they came in and one was very clean and smooth and the blades were a little used, but definitely not abused.
The second one however was covered in some black goop which looked like some sort of tar or hardened grease or something such that it was very hard to tell what condition it was in and the pivots on some of the tools were completely frozen up. I wish I had thought to take pictures of it at this point, but being still new to documenting these types of projects with pictures, I only have after pictures.
Well, I figured I had come out about average on the deal seeing as I got one awesome tool out of the deal and maybe one for parts. So, I lightly cleaned the good one and put a little oil on it. Sharpened it up and it was ready to go. I let the other sit in a drawer for a while until I was ready to deal with it.
After a few weeks, I was reading some helpful tips on this forum for cleaning up old SAKs. Seeing first hand how well that could work out, I decided it was time to tackle this horribly dirty Swiss tool.
I started by soaking it in Dawn dish washing soap and very warm water and inspect it, then repeat. Things seemed like they were going no where. A second and third time and it seemed like it might be helping a little. I tried some WD-40 to get into the pivot joints and lo and behold, it looked like it was finally trying to free up. Black junk started dripping out. Finally, I was starting to get some where.
I alternated between WD-40 and the warm soap bath, making sure to work the joints every time. Finally, it came out spotless. It now operated as smooth as the first one and looked just about as good! It had a couple of dings on the blade and the chisel, but other than that, I could find no faults with it. Sharpened the blades up and now I had basically two new Swisstools (with old plier heads of course).
The first real use came when Dad and I had gone over to someone's house to check on them and they were needing to install a door. We had a minimum set of tools with us and the Swisstool was awesome for filling in the gap. Did almost the whole job single handedly. Wasn't the most ideal of situations, but it worked fine and saved us a trip to the hardware store. Between the drivers, the file, the saw, the chisel and the knife blade, we were able to take off the other door, shave down the new one to make a proper fit and install the hinges.
Following the course of obsession that we all seem to take, I now have the original 2, a BO and a new plier head SS model with potentially a newish X model in progress. I have one in each car, one in a BOB, one in the house and I'm always happy to carry it if I'm outdoors or when I go over to help someone and they say they have the right tools but I'm never convinced they will.
It's amazing what these tools can take and hard to believe that I'd ever wear one out. Still, it's hard to keep from having more than one just so there is always one handy.
Hello, my name is Martin and I want to hoard Swisstools.
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