Another Gerber Balance clone...

[lsalzman]

While crawling around on Alibaba I found this: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-quality-combination-multi-tool-plier_1600375134331.html

There were other Gerber Balance copies I noticed, but they didn't have the scissors or the file that this one did, so it has that going for it. Sliding pliers plus outside accessible scissors, knife, file, and saw (which strangely uses a bottle opener cutout as the nail nick). The knife actually came sharp and the scissors seemed to actually work well. The screwdriver seems to fit double-ended 4mm bits with ball detent from my SAK Cybertool, though the included bits are a bit longer than the Cybertool ones. There is a little pullout hiding spot for an extra bit in the tool as well. The scales on it are orange plastic with black rubber, not aluminum like the other clones. Kind of bulky but not too heavy due to all the plastic. They seem to have moved the slide-out tab to the side face of the tool rather than the front face.

I was willing to eat the shipping cost to play with one. Overall, not quite worth the cost being an "okay" Chinese quality multitool and I don't think this would suffer much heavy usage, but interesting...

[Alan K.]

Orange and black is an odd color combination unless this was to be your dedicated Halloween carry.

[lsalzman]

It looked like they had a grey and black one too, but I couldn't figure out how to order it from some place that wasn't sketchy. While we're picking nits, I wish the scales were aluminum too.

[Hvac budget]

Looks exactly like the Smith and Wesson 15 in 1 multitool I just ordered off Ebay.  I hope it's half decent.  Looks like Smith and Wesson was getting rid of this model and has the circular skeleton handle model now.

[lsalzman]

Nice catch. It does indeed look like that old S&W model...

[mikekoz]

I have two multitools that look like that. One is red and is under the Craftsman name, and the other is Smith and Wesson. The SW has black grippy scales.

[ChopperCharles]

I have one with plain black scales. It's a decent tool. Mine was assembled with one screw that was too long, which jammed up the sliding mechanism. I replaced it with the proper length screw and it works perfectly. I like it better than the actual balance, because the tool loadout makes more sense. But it's also one of those multitools I never use because my hands are too small and it's just awkward to open. Half the time the spring pressure pops it out of my hand and I drop it. (It'd be better if it wasn't a spring-loaded design).

Still, overall a reasonable quality tool.

Charles.