I figured out my perfect 93 mm Alox set.

[fuyume]

Well, it took some research and a lot of thought, but I am pretty sure I've figured out the perfect set of two 93 mm Alox knives for me. The idea here is to have one knife for urban carry and a second knife to supplement it for woods carry.

I realised that the tools I want are:

1. Large blade
2. Reamer
3. Cap lifter
4. Electrician's blade
5. Inline Phillips driver
6. Scissors
7. Wood saw

However, I have no need for the Reamer or Wood saw in an urban carry knife, and I realised I really don't need the large blade in an urban carry knife. Sadly, the only way to get an inline Phillips is to cannibalise a 91 mm, and the Explorer is the cheapest current model that has it. The good news is that you can remove the inline Phillips and magnifier, and reassemble it into a Climber, and give that away or sell it.

Back to the 93 mm knives. For my urban carry knife, I want:

1. Scissors
2. Electrician's blade (or this could be the small blade from the Settler or even the pruning blade from the Pruner or Harvester)
3. Cap lifter
4. Inline Phillips driver

and it just so happens, Robert Lessard proved this can be done:

View this post on Instagram

And that leaves, for the woods carry supplement knife:

1. Large blade
2. Reamer
3. Wood saw

and it just so happens that Victorinox made this exact configuration for SwissBianco and called it the Bushcrafter. Here's a custom locking version from Robert Lessard:

View this post on Instagram

Two knives, each two layers, no redundant tools. Nothing missing I really need in town, and nothing missing I really need in the woods. By separating out the woods components, I minimise the amount of weight and bulk I need to carry in town.

The only difficulty, other than figuring out disassembly and reassembly, and exactly how the inline Phillips works in a 93 mm frame, is the fact that you need at least four donors to assemble the set from currently available models, and you will have parts left over, but still have four knives, two of which will be equivalent to standard models that you can give away or re-sell.

As I said, you can take the Phillips driver and magnifier from an Explorer, reassemble it as a Climber (with new scales, probably), and pass that on. I'd keep the magnifier in a separate pouch in my backcountry handbag (what the menfolk might call a "possibles pouch").

For the urban carry knife, you can start with a Pioneer X, delete the large blade and reamer layer, and remove the can opener. To get the Electrician's blade, we need to sacrifice an Electrician for just the one component.

Then, for the woods carry knife, you can take a Harvester (Swiss Army 7) or Farmer and delete the "openers" layer, leaving behind a Bushcrafter, and two extra tools (cap lifter and pruner or can opener).

Finally, take the Electrician, from which you swiped the small blade, and since you would have an extra pruner or can opener from the Harvester or Farmer, you could reassemble that as a Rancher with the pruning blade or a Pioneer with one of the can openers, and pass that one on.

And that leaves you with just an extra cap lifter, can opener, large blade, and reamer, which I guess you can hold onto for replacement parts, unless you also happen to have some extra scales that you could use to make a Pioneer and pass that on, too.

[fuyume]

I think you can do it with just a Farmer X and an Electrician, too, instead of a Pioneer X, a Harvester, and an Electrician, but you won't have the pruning blade. It still leaves you with enough parts to make a Pioneer, if you have an additional set of scales.

[zrxoa1]

Personally, I find the awl on the 93mm models very valuable. It really does come in handy for a number of uses.

That’s just MY opinion. Otherwise, your ideas sound terrific!!  Can’t wait to see them!


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[kottskrapa]

This will be interesting to follow, when I wanted a Phillips in a 93mm frame I got a lot of help over in the mod section and even got an extra blade spring gifted to me.

[It's not failure if you learn something from it]

[fuyume]

Personally, I find the awl on the 93mm models very valuable. It really does come in handy for a number of uses.

That’s just MY opinion. Otherwise, your ideas sound terrific!!  Can’t wait to see them!


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I'm sure the awl/reamer is very useful. I certainly like the 93 mm reamer design better than the 91 mm design, which I pretty much never used on any 91 mm model I've owned in the past (mainly Huntsman and SwissChamp). I just don't think I'm going to have a need for it on a daily basis in civilisation, but I definitely want it in the woods.

I got a small year-end bonus from my company, and I still have my birthday/holiday budget to spend (my birthday is in December), so I'm in the process of figuring out exactly what I want to buy.

I'm also a musician, and I've had my eye on a couple of effects pedals for guitar and bass. I did already get myself a new fountain pen. I play role-playing games, and there's a few accessories I want for that (and I'm writing a new game book, and I think I need a new piece of software for that), and then maybe a benchtop drill press and some SAKs to mangle into new configurations. So, pretty soon, I will be buying the donor knives.

Oh, and also, my Rambler has a broken scissors spring that needs fixing, and I need to get a second Rambler, because I used to always keep two around, and somehow lost the second one.

[zoidberg]

Robert is known around here as Syph. If you haven't found it yet... And so it begins.... (My adventures into Alox!)

And the +B Bushcrafter we call BuSchroder. We have a thread for that too... BuSchroder Club

[Farmer X]

Some neat ideas you have, Fuyume. My 93mm wish list is small: just pliers and a combo tool (but Victorinox would have to create the latter, I'm sure).

[Aloha]

I love custom builds.  It always neat to see what others dream SAKs are.  You have some cool hobbies too.   

[fuyume]

As much as I'd love to be able to pay Robert to make some knives for me, I think that I can't really afford his work, so I am in for a bunch of studying to figure out how to disassemble and reassemble knives myself.

[fuyume]

The big question I had was that I saw from his Instagram that Robert uses 0.125" pivots, and those being SAE dimensions, I suspected there might be some drilling of the tools involved, since I'm sure Victorinox does everything in metric. And I was right, Robert describes drilling out the tools.

But then I discovered that DECustomForge has 3 mm and 2.5 mm pivots, and while they are a bit pricey, the small number I need to make a couple/three knives for myself won't break the bank. So, it looks like that's the route I'm going to take.

My final question is on how to fit a 91 mm inline Phillips into a 93 mm knife in that configuration, but the good news is, with the barrel and machine screw pivots, things don't have to come together all at once.

[kamakiri]

My final question is on how to fit a 91 mm inline Phillips into a 93 mm knife in that configuration, but the good news is, with the barrel and machine screw pivots, things don't have to come together all at once.

Have you checked into the mod forum? Lots of answers there if you poke around there.

I don’t do a lot of 93mm work, but I think you are better off with the decision to use metric hardware. Maybe consider even just working with nickel silver and making rivets like the original.  I’ve mainly used screw attachment for test fitting and just cut and tap my own. I don’t really see the advantage of screws for a ‘permanent’ build.

For the Phillips, you’d still need to either drill it to 3mm or use a pivot/rivet that fits the existing ~2.5mm hole. But that aside, if memory serves, the Phillips ‘bridges’ the two backsprings for the tools on the other end. Outboard spacers for the Phillips.

And not that you asked my opinion, but the fit of this 3 tool arrangement looks a bit janky most times with all the weird misc. washer/spacers. Cool that it ‘fits’. But not always well detailed from what I’ve seen. You should be able to find some of the top side views of it in the mod forum. I think that would help you understand how it goes together aside from the pivot size issue.

[kamakiri]

If you haven’t found it yet, the first time this was done is here:

https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,34772.msg647597.html#msg647597

[fuyume]

Thanks for that link, I've been busy with other things, so I haven't gotten more than a couple of pages into that thread, yet.

After seeing that, I decided to buy some parts from eBay, the backsprings, liner, and scales of a disassembled Electrician, so I will have an extra pair of scales and the extra backspring to make that work. The same seller had the knife and reamer, as well, but someone bought them a couple of days ago. I really didn't want the knife and reamer, but I would have felt bad about not buying all three, so now I feel a little better.

Now if I just buy a Farmer X and the pivots, and find an inline Phillips (I don't really want to buy a whole knife just for that), I can build this thing, using the can opener, which can stay until I track down an Electrician's blade.

[kamakiri]

Glad the link helps. Make sure you have the material you want to use for the Phillips spacers. I generally cut my own by hand, but I dislike how many use the typical knife liner profile and spacer shapes that are like the awl or small blade ‘bird head’.

[fuyume]

I received my first batch of parts today! The journey begins…

[proletenstahl]

I'm really looking forward to seeing this!