May
17
multi multi tools
Filed Under Personal, gadget thoughts
My beloved Leatherman Charge Ti
I’m ‘that guy.’ You know, the guy in the office you find if you need a knife, a screwdriver or a pair of piers. I’m the dude everyone calls ‘MacGyver’ (both in that jokey to-your-face way and, I’m sure, in that creepy behind-your-back way). My boss has brought my nickname into 21st century and calls me Jack Bauer, which is cool ’cause she also allows me to torture people with electrified lamp cords.
I haven’t always been this way, but having spent 10 years traveling to places like civil-war-era Macedonia, Papua New Guinea and post-Katrina Louisiana, I’ve acquired a few hard-to-shake ticks. I never let my gas tank get less than half-full and I always carry a Leatherman.
History
Grandma has a tradition. When the boys in my family turn 12, she sends them a Swiss Army Knife. For all of high-school and college, it served as my one-and-only multi-tool. Being young and even stupider than I am today, I abused it repeatedly and managed to break both of the knife blades. I still have it, but it’s long since been retired from active use.
Supertool
By the mid-90’s, I’d finally arrived at my current place of employment, and I started getting mailed off to remote parts of the country and globe to cover news events. I carried lots of equipment- cameras, laptops, tripods and lights, and found myself in need of a more substantial tool to make minor and even major repairs. After a trip to REI, I became the proud owner of a then-new Leatherman Supertool.
It was monstrous by comparison to the little Swiss Army, but it could do so much more. The piers were a godsend and (hallelujah) it had locking blades. I still have a scar on my right index finger from that original SAK closing up on me in use, and I’ve never trusted a non-locking knife since then.
Even Lee D. Zlotoff, the creator of MacGyver, recently admitted that today Mac would almost certainly favor Leatherman tools.
It served me very well for a few years, but it was just too large and heavy. Just as annoying, it was a chore to get any of the tools into use, requiring 2 hands to open and (seemingly) 3 hands to unlock the locking mechanism to close it back up again.
Thankfully, the geniuses at Leatherman had just the answer I was looking for, and the Supertool passed into the guardianship of my wife, who dubbed it the “LeatherWoman”. It has served a hard 10 years, but it remains her primary tool of choice around the house.
Wave hello, dear
In 1998, the world saw the introduction of what I still consider the best-designed multi-tool ever conceived, the Leatherman Wave.
A couple of my Waves (new and old style)
I still marvel at the intricate elegance of the design. In comparison to the Supertool, it manages to pack in even more functionality (scissors, yes!) yet is smaller and lighter. Most revolutionary for me were the instantly-accessible locking knife blades. I’ve always found the simple knife to be my most-used tool (from slicing apples to cutting up boxes) and now they were literally a finger-flick away.
I carried it on assignment to Taiwan when a massive earthquake hit the island (7.6 Richter). A year later, it came along in my pocket to Vietnam. I didn’t do anything heroic with it on either trip, but it proved invaluable none the less. It repaired a jammed tape mechanism, cut open UN MRE meal packets and cans of food. I used it to madly chop the tops off of water bottles to catch the… um… ‘output’… from a violently ill colleague.
It also accompanied me to the hairiest spot I’ve ever been. In 2001, I was assigned to a team working undercover to film the inside of a sex slavery ring in Macedonia. At the time, Macedonia was still in civial war, and the assignment took us from one side of the front lines to the other and back again. We posed as clients and, wearing hidden cameras, filmed inside clubs and hotels where the imprisoned girls were forced to do unimaginable things by the vilest scum I’ve ever met.
As journalists, we were of course unarmed and had we been caught I have little doubt what would have happened to us. My sole source of meek comfort: the little Wave in my pocket and it’s quick-opening blades. I knew that it was no match for an AK-47, but I admit to irrationally wrapping my fingers around that little block of steel on several occasions.
I’m sad to say that I no longer own that original Wave. I managed to break one of the screwdrivers and when I sent it to Leatherman’s excellent warranty service department, they sent me back a brand new tool. They could’t have known…
Gilding the Lilly
I have a couple of copies of the Wave, but my favorite and current daily companion is a Leatherman Charge Ti (which I consider a Wave in fancy Titanium trim). It’s a little bit bigger than the original, but it improves in a number of small ways- interchangeable screwdriver bits, better blades and (by far its best feature) a pocket clip. I use it enough that every pair of jeans I own has a thread-bare right front pocket.
It traveled with me to cover the horrific aftermath of Katrina (and the less-remembered Hurricane Rita). On both trips, we spent an inordinate amount of time drenched in a mixture of floodwater and sweat. Again, it proved invaluable in countless small ways- (again) repairing camera and sound equipment, opening food containers and jury-rigging a brace for the antenna of our satellite phone. You know those infrared, touchless paper towel dispensers in public restrooms? Guess what- they don’t work without power. I was able to ‘liberate’ the roll using the Leatherman, earning the gratitude of a small crowd of people trying to clean up after a long, nasty day working in the flood waters.
After I returned home, the tool spent about a week buried inside of an equipment case. It had been wet with polluted flood water, and when I finally dug it out it was nearly rusted solid. I considered sending it back to Leatherman with a letter explaining the situation, but I decided against it. It deserved better than to be returned and throw away. I spent a few loving hours over a weekend with some WD-40 and a wire brush scrubbing it clean. It still retains a few scars, but it still works beautifully.
Little guys
I’ve picked up a number of mini tools over the years. Most have simply been too small to be of much use, but I do retain a soft spot for one of them.
Mini SAK and a Leatherman Squirt
While Leatherman’s full-sized tools have long since displaced the Swiss Army Knife for my purposes, their little tools just don’t do it for me. Their current star is the Squirt, which I’m sure has its following. But for my money it’s too big to be invisible in my pocket but too small to be very useful. On the other hand, the appropriately-named Victorinox “Classic” is just about perfect.
It’s smaller and lighter than a USB drive, but for small jobs on small things it’s fantastic. For fixing eyeglasses, trimming your nails and digging out splinters, there’s simply no peer. I don’t carry one all of the time, but I very often find myself wishing I did.
A new beloved?
Earlier this year, Leatherman introduced their latest method to suck money from my bank account, the Skeletool. It’s a weird-lookin’ thing, but the basic premise is this: start with a full-size tool, pare down weight and bulk while retaining the most important functionality. Skeleton. Tool. Get it? Yea, those marketing folks don’t get anything past old Brainiac here.
I was skeptical about it and managed to hold off buying one for something like 3 whole months, but I have to say I’ve been very pleasently surprised. Despite being the same basic size as a Wave, it is noticably lighter and thinner. It’s a joy to carry, and the things it does (knife, screwdriver and pliers) it does as well or better than any multitool I’ve used.
But I’m not yet convinced and I may never be. I’ve been carrying a Wave-based tool for nearly 10 years now and I’ve developed an almost automatic response to problem-solving with it. When I carry the Skeletool, I find myself wishing I had scissors (for fingernails), or the serated blade (for crusty bread) or the wood saw for, well, wood.
For now, I’m carrying it a day or two a week to see if it grows on me. But I have to admit- when I slip the Charge back in my pocket it still gives me the warm-n-fuzzies. Like coming home after a long, hard trip abroad, it just feels right.
