TL;DR A verbose and not especially eloquent but assuredly boring read about my iterative process to find the best pocket tool for EDC. There’s a few pics and lots of links too. 7118 words.
(Part 1: 3000 Words)
I have been on an eternal quest to find the best EDC tool(s) to supplement the typical knife, flashlight, pen, etcetera that fit my specific requirements. For our purposes here, EDC means what is carried on my person and in my pockets, on my belt, in my boot etc. Effectively, it is affixed to me in some way. Supplementing the pocket knife with crap I keep in my bag is very easy, supplementing it with only what’s in my pockets is tough! This search also must be considerate of my carry choices and methods with carry being either strong side or appendix, with speed loaders or a magazine in the pocket. So pocket space is a premium!
Requirement wise, I’m an IT guy, well THE IT guy, who works in a manufacturing company. While I do make my way into the shop when needed, I’m primarily in the office, and I don’t find myself doing as much field surgery these days in the office or shop. That said, it is quite aggravating to find myself at the furthest end of the building from my office, only to discover I need a screwdriver or Torx driver of some specific size and that no one in the machine shop I work in seems to possess such a tool but me. I also occasionally find myself doing some minor spelunking in the walls and ceilings to pull and mend cables, and there is the infrequent surface mount box or receptacle I have to open up. A screwdriver is also of course handy for rack mounted items. Considerations for this EDC outside of work are moot. If I’m doing real work on something that requires real tools, I’m not going to waste time and aggravate myself with pocket tools. I have sets of real tools for this purpose, and if it can break and fuck up my day, then I won’t leave home without the means to repair whatever “it” is. For me, the EDC that fits work requirements is sufficient for play requirements.
The conclusion is that in addition to the knife, flashlight, pen, etcetera, I would like to have a couple of other tools in my pocket with me all the time to save myself a long walk back to my office or from doing a tool scavenger hunt. The screwdriver is the most used tool after the actual knife, or maybe even before, and so my initial requirements developed as follows:
Must have at least a Phillips screwdriver. Multiple sizes are better.
Must have at least one flat head screwdriver. Multiple sizes are a bonus.
Must fit in my pocket, be compact, not be obstructive, and work with gun carry options.
Any additional tools, farkles, and greebles I can fit in the required form factor is a bonus.
These requirements in mind, I came to the following ways to meet these requirements. A bit of testing and experimenting with each category would eventually yield what I have settled on today.
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A multi-tool/Leatherman/Swiss Army Knife of some sort. One thing to do the knifing and tooling in one package.
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A custom made kit built of the tools I want/need to fit the size I want.
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A purpose built tool to meet my requirements.
The Multi-tools
Off the bat, a classic Leatherman type tool was a no go for me. It was too large to really fit in my pocket nicely and I was not looking to further distinguish myself as aged or weird by wearing it in a belt sheath. Further, I saw no utility in the pliers for my needs and all of the extra tools just added bulk and were not viewed as necessary.
I next tried the prototypical Swiss Army Knife (SAK), which to me is the Tinker. This was the perfect size to slip into the pocket to supplement a larger folding knife and had a Phillips and flat screwdriver, so requirements 1, 2, and 3 were nicely met.
This worked out ok for a bit, but I always found the Tinker inadequate. It was like it was capable of 75% of 75% of the tasks a less than ideal tool could do. The Phillips head screwdriver was nice, but it didn’t lock and being forced to use it T-handle usually made it quite awkward; you couldn’t get into as tight a space with it, and since it didn’t lock that negated most of the force multiplying advantage a T-handle gave it. The flat head screwdriver suffered similar issues with locking, but at least it was usable straight, which allowed access to a bit tighter spaces.
Story time. I actually saved the day for someone at lunch with the Tinker once. They couldn’t open their can of tuna because they had no can opener and I was able to use the Tinker to open it!
The bottle opener was of course useful for beers with the bois and the awl was an occasional time saving drill, but otherwise nothing to write home about.
From this testing and use I developed the following sub-requirements: 1a – The Phillips head screwdriver must lock and be straight, not T-handle. 2 – Bonus if the flat head screwdriver locks and is not T-handle. Experience gained, the requirements were looking like this:
Must have at least a Phillips screwdriver. Multiple sizes are better.
The Phillips screwdriver MUST lock and be straight.
Must have at least one flat head screwdriver. Multiple sizes are a bonus. If it locks and is straight, that’s even better!
Must fit in my pocket, be compact, not be obstructive, and work with gun carry options.
Any additional tools, farkles, and griebals (spelling?) I can fit in the required form factor is a bonus.
After a bit of internet searching with various combinations of the terms “locking screwdriver knife,” I stumbled upon the Swiss Army OHO Trekker (Now seeming called the Trailmaster) and it appeared all of my needs were met with minimal compromise. So of course I immediately procured one!
Called the OHO because the large hole/loop in back of the blade is intended to be used as an ambidextrous thumb stud for one handed opening. The flat head locked and the small flat head on the end can opener locked and was small enough to be useful for most Phillips head screws. It even had a T-handle Phillips for when that would work. The screwdrivers being straight made them much more useful and I was able to accomplish 90% of the screwing tasks I wanted the screwdrivers for.
At some point I realized I could modify the thumb hole and cut the front of it off to give it an Emerson dong, so I did. Shortly there after, I added a pocket clip scavenged from some other knife to allow it to be pulled from the pocket, catch the dong on the edge of the pocket, and open in a single, fluid motion. The Emerson dong also worked as a bottle opened, so that gave some plausible deniability if anyone ever asked why.
Ahhh perfection! All was good for a long time! I even lost my first one at some point and bought a second one to replace it, adding the same Emerson dong and pocket clip mods. These mods spawned new requirements 4 and 5 and pushed our previous requirement 4 to 6. 4 – the blade must be one handed opening or modifiable to have an Emerson dong. 5 – The knife must have a pocket clip in the correct direction or be able to have one added (I’m left handed and I want the blade tip up to open off the dong).
After a couple of years of daily driving it, I was still pretty happy but now had enough time on it to see that the remaining tools were about as useful as they were on the Tinker; they were all handy occasionally, but not really good or needed enough to add real value. They just added bulk, and this knife was pretty thick at about .7”.
With reducing that bulk in mind, I started thinking about what would make this perfect, and concluded that if I could remove the saw and awl, that would thin it out substantially; I was also willing to give up the T-handle Phillips if required. There are many videos out there of people building customs SAKs and modifying them by taking parts out so I know it is doable. However, before I would proceed further with this project, I came upon a new knife to try. The requirements at the conclusion of this trial are:
Must have at least a Phillips screwdriver. Multiple sizes are better.
The Phillips screwdriver MUST lock and be straight.
Must have at least one flat head screwdriver. Multiple sizes are a bonus. If it locks and is straight, that’s even better!
Must fit in my pocket, be compact, not be obstructive, and work with gun carry options.
The blade must be one handed opening or modifiable to have an Emerson dong.
The knife must have a pocket clip in the correct direction or be able to have one added (I’m left handed and I want the blade tip up to open off the dong).
Any additional tools, farkles, and greebles I can fit in the required form factor is a bonus.
My SAK OHO Trekker with added clip and dong mod. Now missing the tweezers like every other SAK out there.
The Leatherman Free K2 was an improvement in every area over the SAK OHO Trekker. One handed opener that can be modified into a dong! Reversible pocket clip! .61”! The blade and ALL of the tools! Sublime! *chef’s kiss*
I used this knife for a little over a year and was very satisfied with it. I cut many stranded and solid core wires with the blade (420HC) and it didn’t seem to dull at all. Eventually I even rolled a 1” section of the blade over by whacking it into a axle housing while cutting through wire bread/packaging ties. To the point of rolling the edge, I hadn’t sharpened it ever (approximately 9 months of use) and with a quick session on a fine stone pulling it in the opposite direction of the roll, I had the roll corrected and we were back in business not much worse for wear.
I cannot understate just how useful it is that the screwdrivers lock. The locking really allows you to get some good torque on a screw without worrying about folding the knife and smashing your fingers. The quasi T-handle shape of the knife having a flat vs round grip also really helps produce torque. Though ultimately a little short, you could still reach into most receptacles and surface mount boxes except for the most crowded because the handle of the knife added a good amount of length.
Again, everything the SAK OHO Trekker did, but better. I came to find that I would prefer an even thinner knife and that the awl was still marginally useful at best as a tool for me, so removing it to thin it out would be nice. However, customizing this knife would be quite a bit more involved than the SAK OHO Trekker; it is constructed quite different.
While pondering my modifications options I finally said to myself “I wonder if there is any knife out there that isn’t a Leatherman that would take ¼” driver bits?” The light finally went off on what seems like something exceedingly obvious to search for. And so, the adventure began to find something that was thinner and used standard ¼” driver bits. This modified the requirements quite a bit to:
Must have a screwdriver that takes standard ¼” driver bits. Proprietary bits are to be avoided!
The screwdriver MUST lock and be straight.
Must fit in my pocket, be compact, not be obstructive, and work with gun carry options.
The blade must be one handed opening or modifiable to have an Emerson dong.
The knife must have a pocket clip in the correct direction or be able to have one added (I’m left handed and I want the blade tip up to open off the dong).
Any additional tools, farkles, and greebles I can fit in the required form factor is a bonus.
My Leatherman Free K2 with the dong mod. Leatherman gets an A+ for easily replaceable clips.
After minimal of searching, I found numerous options of knives that took removable driver bits. Many were based off of the proprietary Leatherman flattened bit system and were immediately disqualified because of that. A few other knives took standard ¼” driver bits, but were super bulky due to design or the inclusion of other tools. Eventually some combination of search terms landed me on the Kershaw Select Fire.
My first impressions was that I was blown away! How could I not have found this knife before! It seems to tick all of the boxes and requirements! Folding 4” screwdriver that takes standard ¼” bits! 4 bits held in the handle! A bottle opener and ruler integrated! Sure the blade doesn’t dong, but I can live with that, I’m in love after all. Alas, that love was short lived.
First, the screwdriver didn’t lock. I thought this would be okay at first and I could live with it and was willing to compromise. It was immediately apparent, this was not going to work. The longer screwdriver, while nice for reaching into things, made it much more prone to closing unless you were able to keep things nice and aligned and perfectly straight. The large flat handle was awkward for turning the screwdriver in general. This awkward handle shape coupled with the propensity for the screwdriver to close, I found the screwdriver would frequently close while in the middle of turning a screw, especially if any torque was being applied.
I was also quickly unimpressed by the blade steel. It just never felt sharp like the other knives, and had what I can only describe as a “sticky” quality/feeling to it. It almost felt like how aluminum feels sticky when you cut/file/drill/tap it. The knife always cut fine and the blade was sharp enough for any daily use, but I couldn’t get over how it felt and couldn’t help but think it was going to be a PITA to sharpen.
A final quibble that seems minor, but was actually super annoying is you could not use the bottle opener without deploying the screwdriver. That doesn’t sound bad at first, but ends up being awkward and the screwdriver is still in the way; it either sticks straight out of the back or it folds while levering the opener with your hand gets in the way that way.
Overall, I used this knife for no more than six months before I couldn’t do it anymore. It was just sub-optimal in every way. This experience did however lead to the addition of two new criteria, new 5 – you must not have to deploy one tool to use another, and 6 – attention to the handle shape and size is required. The requirements at this point are as follows:
Must have a screwdriver that takes standard ¼” driver bits. Proprietary bits are to be avoided!
The screwdriver MUST lock and be straight.
Must fit in my pocket, be compact, not be obstructive, and work with gun carry options.
The blade must be one handed opening or modifiable to have an Emerson dong.
The knife must have a pocket clip in the correct direction or be able to have one added (I’m left handed and I want the blade tip up to open off the dong).
You must not have to deploy one tool to use another.
Attention to knife handle shape and size is required.
Any additional tools, farkles, and greebles I can fit in the required form factor is a bonus.
How annoying…
Disappointment with the Kershaw Select Fire brought me to the final multi-tool knife of testing, the Gerber Armbar Slim Drive. This knife again represented a bit of a compromise for some things, it used double sided ¼” drive bits, but the screwdriver was straight and locked and no other tools needed to be deployed to use another so I was willing to give it a shot anyways.
I picked one up on Christmas sale off of the Gerber website for $20. Boy am I glad I got it on sale, immediate and resounding NO when it arrived; I would have been pissed if I paid full price. This is not really any fault of Gerber’s, but somewhere in looking at the pictures the size of the knife got lost in translation. I thought it was a typical 4” sized knife, but it only has a 2-1/2” blade so it is tiny.
This failure of finding yet another multi-tool got me thinking though that perhaps, there was a better solution to this, and that involved removing the knife functions from the tool functions and having them as separate entities. That modified the requirements a quite a bit since there was no need to consider the knife when searching out tools, and made them new requirements quite sparse and generalized compared to what had previously developed. The new requirements are thus:
Must have a screwdriver that takes standard ¼” driver bits. Proprietary bits are to be avoided!
Must fit in my pocket, be compact, not be obstructive, and work with gun carry options.
Any additional tools, farkles, and greebles I can fit in the required form factor is a bonus.
The screwdriver is prone to folding…
A comparison of the multi-tool knives I tried, blades out.
A comparison of the multi-tool knives I tried, main screwing features stood erect.
Not boring in the least and very informative, thanks for the in-depth analysis, greatly appreciated Lenard. The only EDC tool I find useful for all things firearms in the field is the Real Avid Multi Tool Core and I do have a Swiss Army Rescue Tool for my vehicles.
I have one of those Real Avids sitting in my cart for the gun bag! I figured it would be too big for my pocket though.
Thanks for the thorough study. My son got a Kershaw Select Fire as a gift but immediately went back to carrying a Leatherman Wave since it was a similar size. He has big pockets and doesn’t mind the bulk.
I used to carry a Swiss Army Knife daily. Mine was the Victorinox Explorer because it was the most compact model with scissors and a Phillips screwdriver.
I just carry a knife and a belt buckle with screwdrivers since a multi tool or full kit is usually in a bag or nearby car.
Some people swear by the scissors, I just never found them useful personally!
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What is this belt buckle you speak of?
Leatherman Charge XTi (discontinued, but you can get a Charge AlX which is pretty similar) for me, with the proprietary “bit kit” I received as a gift.
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No, it does NOT fit in a pocket, but unlike a lot of people I’m fine with a belt sheath. I picked up a MOLL-E double mag pouch that fits the Leatherman in one and up to 3 plastic bit holders in the other. I carry my sidearm just behind the hip on my strong side, so I put the Leatherman kit on my weak side, which helps balance the weight.
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What I like about it is that it has TWO swap-able bit drives, not just one (I generally keep one flat and one Phillips, but if I know I’ll need it I’ll switch one out for a hex or Torx bit); the bit drives (all the tools, really) lock into place; and that its file has one side that works as a knife sharpener (I use it to touch up my EDC knife as needed). What I don’t like is that the drive bits are off-center, so it’s easy for them to pop off the screw. Using it “open” instead of closed is more manageable but not perfect; they’re still a bit off-center.
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YMMV, and if not using a belt sheath is a condition, I can see how this wouldn’t work for you.
I’m not fully opposed to a belt sheath, and I like the idea of offsetting the gun’s weight with it, but for my wife’s sake I’ll give it another 20 years or so until I can get away with adding suspenders as well 🙂
LOL, my wife would love it if I went to suspenders! I’m not ready for that step yet.
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My belt is a reinforced EDC “gun belt”, so it doesn’t sag or roll with the weight even if it’s all on one side. Distributing it on both sides is more about comfort and concealability (so I don’t have a massive bulge on one side and I’m not constantly “listing to starboard” 😀 ) than a requirement.
I agree aesthetics wise, I am not super into the look of many Leathermans, but I can overlook that if the function is there for me.
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I go reinforced belt as well.
Looked into multi-tools in my younger days, but never could quite reach for my wallet. Perhaps I would have more use for one if we lived in a more rural location.
I saw the CRKT M16-01S EDC the photo at the bottom. For a couple of decades now, my EDC has been a CRKT M16-01K. The frame is aluminum and colored British racing green. It has the liner blade lock and no secondary lock.
Also have a Homefront.
I’ll give it a loo, ty. I’m a fan of CRKT, I’ve always been happy with their knives. EDCed an old Ignitor with the thumb button for a long time; I particularly like the serrations on that blade. Currently EDCing a Seis until I find something more beefy.
I love my Victornox Tinker. It has everything I need in my pocket. I find my most used tool is the scissors. Leatherman tools are heavy. The smaller ones I don’t like because the blades have gotten thick and the edge angle is too steep. I wanted to like the K2, but for the price, it should be a better blade steel.
Many people say that about the scissors! Fair enough on the K2, being a materials science guy I see where you are coming from. I’ve never been much of a steel nerd so it wasn’t even a consideration when buying that knife for me. I will say though, I don’t baby my knives and the K2 has held up nicely and remained basically indefinitely sharp.
Valid criticisms about Leatherman’s newer products. I’ll even add to it: they’re ugly. They look like they were pieced together from spare parts, especially if they went hog wild on “skeletonized” pieces. It’s an aesthetic they’ve chosen, but I don’t care for it. (I already question the wisdom of skeletonized handles on folding knives. How many poor souls closed their knife without realizing they had a finger tip in there? Safer to just go with solid scales and use aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, G10, etc., if you’re overly concerned with weight.)
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I’m a life-long Leatherman user, but I greatly prefer the older stuff if I can get it. In addition to the Charge I mentioned above, I also keep a Micra on my keychain, and when one got confiscated by event security (my fault, I forgot it was there) and I need a replacement, I turned to eBay to find an older one. At some point after the first generation they changed suppliers for the blade blanks, and newer ones reportedly have QC issues with the steel. (There’s articles written about how to identify which generation it is by the markings — don’t trust the product description alone.)
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Agreed on the grind angles, too. They don’t do enough to shape the profile, and pretty much go straight to the edge grind. If they did a flat or saber grind, it would make for a finer edge. Or they could do a more robust convex or compound grind and keep most of the mass and strength, but still get a finer edge. That would increase costs, though, and given that new Leathermans are already pretty spendy, they’d lose sales. (Maybe if they didn’t machine the crap out of everything to skeletonize it, they’d save costs.)
I’ve been carrying the Kershaw Select Fire for over 10 years. I wore out one, and bought a second a few years ago.
The capability to have 4 standard sized bits of varying configurations overcomes the other shortcomings for me. I usually carried a #2 Phillips, a 5mm flat head a 3/16′ Allen bit and a #4 Torx. I came across these four on an almost daily basis for work and having them in a convenient pocket tool was a lifesaver on many occasions.
The knife steel is ok, not great, but it holds an edge well enough and is easy to sharpen when it gets dull.
I have other, prettier knives for dressy occasions, but this one always ends up in my back pocket on a regular basis.
If the screwdriver locked, I would grin and bear it for everything else it brings to the table!
Yeah, that would be a nice addition. Still, it is very handy to have around.
1st, thanks guys, glad to see you are enjoying it!
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2nd, minor correction. On the SAK Trekker the small screw driver doesn’t lock. The screwdriver on the Gerber Armbar does not lock, it has a stronger than usual detent though.
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3rd, I forgot to mention to AWA when sending in my article that all of the links are provided to help you find what I was talking about if it tickled your fancy. I don’t make any money off of them; no affiliate, no commission, no kick back, nada. I also was not asked by anyone to share those links or try any of those specific products, it was all stuff I found searching around on my own. Just wanted make sure that was clear.