I was requested to nerd out about a multitool.

Fair warning: I'm running on like 3 hours of sleep so expect me to be frantic.
Also ramble. As it turns out - a lot.
Also opinions. A lot of them. Watch out for those.

also I MADE A FOLLOW UP POST, AND IT'S HERE

Aight so foreword: Most Multitools out there tailor to one of two kinds of people

• an American Outdoorsman
  and
• an American handyman

everyone and everything else is more of an afterthought.

90% of the reputable brands are from 'merica. Then there's Victorinox wich is great but also very set in their tradition and while less tailoring to outdoorsmen or it's prone to not having right tools in it. For example - Cybertool. Made specifically to work for the electrnics, gives you speciall driver for old computer plugs, but it's secondary blade is standard one, not their electrician's knife, wich would be apprechiated for the cable going into the plugs. Their scisors are surprisingly great though but their screwdriers generaly lack a bit, cybertool being the one exception, but there it takes a lot of space.

Wich brings me neatly into my idea of a good multitool worth carrying everyday. To me the tools you'd be likely to use on your way to and from or even at work don't exactly involve a saw. Not often anyway. They do however invlove both a good pair scissors though a decent screwdriver, prefferably one with exchangable bits, something the Swiss staple seems to be actively avoiding.

As far as knives go - very important basic tool, but honestly to me the ones in multitools inherently kinda suck - I fully expect outdoorsmen to require very good steel, longer blades, high edge retention and a lot of area to sharpen, both for the sake of a better edge and the knife lasting longer. Failing that you'd probably prefer something you could replace independently from the rest of the tool anyway. All that and also the fact that, for some reason multitools don't center their knives, wich for a plier style tool I get, but baffles me for the form factor of the swiss army KNIFE. To be fair for 'nox, they do have nice, knife first designs.
On the other hand we have a city dweller who's unlikely to need a thick blade that needs rigorous sharpening after a while. If anything it may get them in legal trouble, especially if it locks, wich most american designs do by default. My honest opinion is that a precision blade of some sort, either the replacable razor or scalpel style would be prefferable, since they are for one - more precissional, as the name implies, for two- safer and for three - you just swap the blades instead of sharpening. Hell even the snapping-off ones would be great, but snapping them off precisely requires another tool, wich kind of defeats the purpose, at least in plier-style tools. And in fact, when I took a look into custom multitools, I did find that replacable scalpels were the most common addition, at least from what I was able to notice.

Thre's also one moretool that I think would be of (more) use in the everyday setting. Lockpiking jigglers. Simple one-hand use tools that require little to no skill, that may be of help if you lock yourself out of the car or your partner locked the door to the house and you have no key. I mean need I say more? I think yu'll encounter more locks than branches needing to be cut, at least wheh you can't get a better, dedicated tool from your garage anyway.

ENTER MY NEW FAVOURITE MULTITOOL BRAND Roxon



Those guys know how things work. - let's start with the one I just bought - miniture Multitool Tool by the model name of Roxon M2.

The thing is only abouut 7cm tall folded (yes, I'm using metric, they did as well in their material) And uses the still unusall double plier form fator, basically meaning that the thing folds twice. It's a style I've seen for the first time like 2 days ago and hated it, because it was on a tool half the price yet twice the size and the handles were just disproportionally large. The formfactor does allow however to get both pliers and very high quality scisors. Ones that for the mutitool standards and with their rigid build and good steel border on qualifing as pruning implements. Roxon really likes the format, but they make it in decent proportions, and M2 is one such example. As I said, I find scissors to be among the most important every day implements in a multitool, so this was a first amazing score for the tool.

It's probably a good time to talk about pliers. Pliers are essential. To me. Most of the time. The reason the two major formfactors exist is that not everyone is the same, and Roxon does have great options for them. And from what I've seen most of them integrate those scissors, because clearly - they know what they have. This is why Leathermans minature offerings never even got considered as far as I go. They got one or the other, but Roxon has both, so why chose?

Secondly the srewdriver. This is the one that gets hurt the most by focus on americans and havey duty work. 1/4 inch replacable bits are great, but they take up a lot of space in a tool. And overall. I'm a tinkerer, I mostly work on electronics and computers, apliences toys. I don't need the large bits nor do I want them. Roxon's solution is actually genious here. You get 4mm bits, wich I already preffer 10 fold, but it get's better, because the way you use them is: You get a normal Philips screwdriver. Long enough to get into most treacherously long screw holes in the cheepest of chinese plastic toys. Probably not all, but oh well. You also get an adapter that you put ON TOP of it, that then lets you put whatever bits. Maximum efficiency. Bits are take 'em or leave'em, little functionality lost, since Philips screws are 90% of what you find anyway. Also way better approach to space saving that Leatherman who in their infinite wisdom - made their own standard that's compatible one way with 1/4 inch, but is still limited by it's width to about what 4mm is, with no chance of fitting in many spaces due to it's other dimensions. This is literally only acceptable because their Skeletool has a slot for a single additional bit, and even then if they went with 4mm it would be a space for two of them.

That's 2 out of 3 proposed tools, other than the jigglers because no one would put that on there by default. What about the precission knife? Well we can't have them all. I am already considering ways to introduce one in, but I'll leave that to myself untill it's done. If it's done. Same with the saw, because I do actually live on the countryside and it doesn't have one. in fact it doesn't have that much in it that would be of much use, but who cares - he whole point is that it's the one that does the things I want right. Also an awl. I find those would probably have more uses than bottle openers, at least in the world of precission knives over regular ones. Certainly so if combined with rimmers. So yea that's a plus in my book.

But Again Roxon has you covered for more than that - KS2 is basically just the stuff you need plus a saw. And an awl. Has a file/screwdriver combo but it still works with the adapter. It just doesn't come with one, like M2 does.



Their large tools are great too - Storm is the one above. It's also basically just larger M2 with more tools, with most of them being improvements over M2, except the screwdriver being shorter and 1/4 inch, but to each their own. In fact I'm ordering one along with mine for someone. It was somehow actually 20PLN cheaper than mine, likely purchased pre-inflation, evident of the fact that it's the non improved version, but still, Storm is or should be 150% the suggested price of M2 and local retailrs seem to have it at 200%.
Flash is their iteration on Leatherman Signal, wich once again - they know what they're doing with. Except it doesn't have the hammering bottom o the signal due to their base construction. No replacable bits or removable file either. But it's also $33 instead of $140.
And Phantom wich actually got me introduced to them. Remember how I mentioned I'd rather have a replacable blade if I was to sharpen it repeatedly? YEP. They decided to play into the modylar multitool idea and done just that. MAin blade is easily user swapable with no extra tools. Even better - they have the precision blad eas an option. And a file, wich would actually make more sense if you had a secondary blade. esoecially since it has a lining for sharpening. And my favourite screwdriver setup. AND the scissors. If I had twice the money and pocket space I do you KNOW I'd be getting one right now. But it'll have to wait.

Speaking of user replacable however - I would normally make thisninto a separate post but compared to this one, I got nothing that wouldn't be re-iteration that I'd still have to do so might as well.
There now exists a modular multitool platform, called GOAT. Satnds for Gentleman Of All Trades. Amazing name. - Open source, with engineering that's definitely to my liking, such as three-way sharpened wire cutter blades so you have to carry fewer and get more cutting out of each replacement one you get, amazing; also zero space between the uniformly wide tools - great for saving space, terrible for dirty enviroments. Anyway that'd be almost 3 times what I paid for M2 for the base model. And yea the standard is open but you don't get what's already been designed, just the bases. Still amazing that it's a thing, and way better for the whole file and knife combo, but man I'm Polish and currently a student, and if we're being terribly honest with ourselves I have no need for a tool like that. Maybe one day. Till then I hope it does well. It makes too much sense to make your own kit instead of relying on companies to come up with one.

Ight that's it. I already spewed way too much.
Also I had to put it in Travel and Places because honestly it was the only place I could hope it wouldn't look like spam.