Swiss Army ... tool

[John Ziebron]

I guess we won't be seeing a return of the MacGyver series.................

[Tom M King]

I don't think I ever went to school a day in my life without the little Solingen pocket knife that an Uncle brought back from Germany in WWII. I stopped carrying it, and any other knife when I was 23. It was after I bought my first full set of Arkansas stones that included a very nice black. The first two people who asked to bother my knife ended up with me taking them to the hospital even after I warned them to be careful because the knife was Very sharp. I stopped carrying one because I got tired of spending all that time in hospitals.

edited to add: I travel as light as possible now. left pocket has a tiny leather business card wallet with Drivers License, Medicare card, and debit card, and loose Chap Stick and few pieces of cash. Right pocket has cell phone. Back right or little zipper pocket in running shorts has ear plugs and single key to the mechanic shop. Nothing else needed.

[Edward Weber]

I switched to the better brands of multi-tools years ago because I like the useful pliers but I use the knives often, have one in the door pocket of every vehicle. I get that they are trying to sell in the areas that don't allow blades, its the silly law I question in the first place.

I can't argue with that.
I've been carrying a pocket knife of one sort or another throughout the past 45 years and I've managed to NOT stab anyone with any of them. If I can resist the urge, anybody can.

The multi tool I use the most, pretty much the only one I use, is this.
6LC.jpg
https://wiki.multitool.org/tiki-inde...ge=6LC+Toolbox

I keep it on my tractor, I wish they still made them.

[Jim Koepke]

When one of my grandsons was to be given a knife, there weren't any extras in my accumulation. We went looking for a Swiss Army knife like my own and could only find one without a cutting edge. Eventually a few more were purchased used and he ended up with one.

There is almost always a small Swiss Army knife in my pocket. Currently it is one Lee Valley sold a few years ago. They tend to get lost every few years due to mental lapses of leaving it somewhere or dropping it in a place that can not be reached.

If they are seen in a second hand shop or antique shop at a reasonable price, they come home with me.

These are my favorites.

Pocket Knives.jpg

The two bladed one at the lower left is my oldest one, purchased about 40 years ago. It sits on the table at the end of the sofa and is used for opening mail and other chores. There is also one of the knives next to my keyboard for anything that it might be needed to do.

A few of my knives are not shown in the picture. One found in an antique mall was an advertising piece for a medical company and where many have a toothpick this one has a small ball point pen.

Some of the advertising knives or ones of different colors have been given to my kids and grandkids. About 40 years ago, one was given to one of my daughters. She some how got caught taking it to school. It was confiscated and never returned.

During my school days we weren't supposed to bring knives to school, but a lot of us did.

jtk

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Darling has managed to hang on to her Swiss Army knife. It resides religiously in her bicycle pannier. It is the next size down from the Huntsman. The blade is used almost as much as the corkscrew. Both are indispensable as is the can opener.

[Steve Demuth]

Guess I'm the odd one out in this conversation - I carry a pocket knife whenever I'm not going out to a place that prohibits them*. But the knife I have carried for many, many years is not a Victorinox, but a Camillus US Army issue Military Engineer's Knife. It's beautifully made and tough with bone scales, and a robust hanger loop, and with four tools: knife, marlin spike (awl), flat screwdriver and bottle opener, and can opener. My dad carried the civilian version from Camillus pretty much every day after the war - probably went through twenty of them over his lifetime. Mine doesn't get hard enough use to be as worn out as his became (although mostly, he left them laying a field somewhere, and had to replace them), and at age 82 is still in pretty darned good shape.

* Most notably in my life any more, the clinic where my wife gets her cancer treatments. They installed magnetometers and started screening everyone coming into the clinic just a couple of years ago. It annoys the heck out of me when I forget and have to return to parking to stow my knife after discovery, but I get why they do it. I served on the institutional Security Committee there in my last gig before retirement, and the incidents of very real threats and assaults on nurses in particular but also doctors and other patients from irate and unstable patients or patient "visitors" we reviewed on a regular basis more than justifies the inconvenience to visitors to the clinic. It doesn't, of course, prevent someone who is absolutely determined from causing harm - there are lots of potential weapons for assault inside the clinic - but it does two things that really help: first, it makes anyone coming into the area with a pre-hatched plan to use a knife or gun to cause harm discard the mechanism of their plan, and rethink what they're doing, and second, it makes spontaneous assaults - the "I'm pissed at what you just did or told me, and I've got a weapon in my pocket, let's see how you like this medicine" assault - far less likely.

[Jerome Stanek]

My first Swiss army knife was given to me when the Glidden paint store opened 1988 and I was the first customer they gave it to me and hung one of the dollar bills on the wall. Since then I have been carrying one. I still have the first one but retired it and bought a new one that one I also retired as the red shell cracked so now I have a bigger one that I hvae been carrying. I also always carry a Gerber multi tool and a maglite on my belt. They have all been very useful over the years.

[Lee DeRaud]

Very long ago I had a knife my dad got from the USAF, probably as part of some survival kit. It was bright orange and had two 'blades'.

The smaller of the two was a ~2" smooth-edge knife blade. The other was a larger (3"-4") J-shaped widget, sharpened on the inner edge, designed to catch and cut parachute shroud lines; it was spring-loaded and activated by a button, "switchblade" style.