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Peter Atwood has a knack for designing tools that are quite functional but with a bit of unusual thrown in for good measure. I like his designs in respect that he is not afraid to think outside of the box. The Crawdaddy as it's called is one of those designs. It takes it's cue from some of the wrench designs mixed in with a sense of artistic flair.
When it comes to pocket tools Peter Atwood is the king of the hill. Not only has he helped define the genre but his quality and attention to detail is impeccable. When you look at all of the tools Peter has produced; he has come a long way and has created some great tools that are the essence of form meets function. Of all of the tools he produces, one in particular has been more popular and has seen more revisions than the rest. The original prybaby was the landmark tool that Peter created out of necessity and has become a staple in his lineup to this day. The prybaby is so popular due to its simplicity and no bones approach to a tool that can handle numerous duties.
This being my first Atwood review, I would like to talk about Atwoods in general and why they are not only popular but a good tool to buddy up your other multitools. Peter Atwood as a custom knife/tool maker has made many different items, but his true passion is for small pocket tools. With his artistic eye he creates tools that are both functional and in the eyes of his collectors they are works of art. Getting into Atwood tools can be somewhat difficult, the first problem is acquiring one after you get over the initial sticker shock. Atwood tools can start at $40 and work their way up to the hundreds, they can be bought directly from Peter in a process called “lotteries” where you put your name into a hat so to speak and names are drawn randomly or you can go to one of the various knife forums on the internet and see if any are for sale.
With pry tools and pocket gadgets being all the rage these days, most folks look to the big guy Peter Atwood. There is however someone else who is very close in quality and can make the tool you want with a quick turn around time. Peter use to make tools on a as needed basis but he got so overwhelmed that he ended up doing runs of particular tools instead. Folks now had to wait till he would make another run of something, if in fact he ever did decide to make that model again. This is not the case with a fellow named Joshua Rice at JDR Knife and Tool. Joshua produces various kinds of both knives and tools and makes them to order out of his shop in Fischer, Texas.
When you think of pocket and key chain tools the first name that comes to your mind is Peter Atwood. There is such a following for these miniature works of art that they become incredibly hard to find and sometimes you pay more than you would if you get them directly from Peter. I knew there had to be some folks out there besides Peter and I went on my quest to find other pocket tool manufacturers. What hit me were there a quite a few folks who either make tools full time or dabble in them a little as a side project. Most of them are folks who no longer make them and getting your hands on one is next to impossible. But alas there is hope; I came upon a gentleman named Ray Kirk who runs rakerknives.com. Ray is a custom knife maker who makes fixed blades as well as some folders; his new found love though is for a tool he called the Raker Ring Tool.
I awaited rather impatiently the arrival of several Super Tool 300s that I had ordered before they came out. As luck would have it, I finally got them, and it is time to write a small review about my thoughts and ideas about Leatherman’s newest addition to the multi-tool family.
The Super Tool 300 is 3rd in a family of large heavy multi-tools. You can see its lineage in the older models. The first Super Tool came out in 1994 and was discontinued in 2001. That was quickly followed by the Super Tool 200 which had a run from 2001 to 2005. At this point, Leatherman produced the Core which was introduced in 2005 and is still being produced although there are talks that it may be discontinued soon, but who knows other then Leatherman. The Super Tool 300 is a 2009 model that had a September roll out.
To better understand the Super Tool 300, you have to examine its predecessors. The whole family is geared towards Industrial/Construction trades, where a larger and tougher tool is in high demand. Special mention should go out to another large multi-tool, the Surge, which will not be talked about in this short review as it belongs to another Leatherman family and doesn’t quite fit into the lineage of the Super Tool 300.
One could almost argue that the Core does not belong in this group, as it came out along with the Kick, Fuse, and Blast, which belong to another branch of the family. These all contain Zytel liners. However, the Core shares quite a bit with the Super Tool 300 as you shall see, and is deserving of its place in this review.
Lets take a closer look…
First, here’s the writeup on the back of the Gerber Splice package: “Don’t be fooled by the Gerber Splice mini tool’s compact size. Carried in your pocket or attached to your key chain, you’ll be prepared for any situation that arises. With Fiskar’s scissors, flat & cross-point drivers, file, bottle opener, fine edge & serrated blades, the Splice mini tool will cover you when reaching for something more convienient than your tool box in the garage.”
Gerber Legendary Blades has been making knives and tools now for 70 years; hard to believe they have been in the market since before Leatherman was founded. Since Gerber released their first multitool (1991) they have been churning them out in an effort to keep them selves ahead of the pack. Gerber continues to innovate and gives us tools that we both thought were cool looking and some that made us wonder what they were thinking. Gerber went back to the drawing board and decided to create a tool from scratch that was very different than the usual Gerber product line. There seems to be a trend involving a lightweight tool that features a minimal amount of basic functions. Gerber has come through and brought a design which I feel will do the Gerber product line some justice.
Dubbed the Crucial the new tool features several basic features that you would use on a daily basis and cuts out the tools you probably wouldn’t need. At 5 oz the Crucial is quite a light tool, perfect for EDC (Everyday Carry) and right at home in your pocket. Featuring sleek curved handles which are both ergonomic and have a sense of flair, they house a number of simple tools to get most jobs done.
The Power Plier is one of those tools that seemed to disappear from the collective conscious when it was discontinued. The predecessor to both the Pocket Power Plier and the PowerLock the Power Plier is well worth tracking down. And not just for collecting purposes; but as a great EDC tool that has some advantages over the PowerLock. Don't be mistaken, it does show it's age during use; the tools clump, implement finish is slightly lower quality than current production tools and none of the blades lock. But it has the sleek simplicity of an earlier time and the rugged functionality that the industry was born of.
The Freestyle has been one of the most anxiously awaited models from Leatherman for some time, but has gone through a number of changes since it's inception. Originally it was expected to look like the Skeletool series, and in fact, we had heard about the Freestyle long before the Skeletool emerged. Still, at the 2008 SHOT Show I had seen three very similar variations of what was expected to be the Skeletool, Skeletool CX and the Freestyle. At the time, the Freestyle was expected to have the same basic layout of the Skeletool, only with a fixed “multipurpose” driver expected to fit both slotted and phillips screws, rather than the interchangeable bit drivers found on the Skeletool series.
When Buck teamed up with Outdoorsman Peter Whittaker to create the next line of multitools, I don’t think Buck thought they would be as popular as they ended up being. Buck was defiantly bold when they pushed forward with a design like none other; a tool where all the tools are opened with one hand. This vision and determination has gotten Buck back into the multitool market and given the tool community a product that is both of quality and totally unique. Since its release Buck has produced their original X-Tract model, the LED model (a basic X-Tract with an LED) and the FIN which adds a plain edge blade and scissors to the tool. It was only natural for Buck to take the next logical step and do what X-Tract fans have been yelling about from the start, make the X-Tract with a pocket clip.
SOG Specialty Knives and Tools has been one of the top competitors in the multitool market for a long time. In my opinion they are second in status, with Leatherman of course being the top dog. They have come along way since their toolclip and they continue to produce models that are nothing short of unique. SOG is one of those companies however that does not release new models every year and is slower to innovate than most people in the industry today. I believe SOG has the philosophy; that “if it’s not broken then don’t fix it.”
For the longest time we thought SOG would never release anything new into the tool market. Then they totally surprised us with the release of the Powerlock 2.0. The new model was not much different than the original model but had some key features that showed that they were willing to do some innovating. The new Powerlock featured a gear cover, so the teeth don’t dig into the palm of our hands as much and what SOG calls “Piano Keys”. The keys are there to aid in preventing the tools from clumping when getting a tool out of the handles. Both designs that were introduced on the Powerlock 2.0 were a testing ground for a new breed of SOG tool they had in the works. Dubbed the PowerAssist it was to be the first tool in the world with dual spring assisted blades. Needless to say the public was divided in two; those who thought this was a cool idea and those who thought this was just a marketing gimmick from the folks at SOG. Only time would tell if the PowerAssist lived up to the hype and would help launch SOG into a future that is full of mystique.
In the multitool market, manufacturers primarily create tools with pliers as their primary function. Occasionally we see interesting designs that depart from the norm and are pretty much in a league of their own. When CRKT/I.D. Works created the Zilla and the Guppie; there was a surprising acceptance by the multitool community. Someone had decided to try something different with a unique flair to them and they appeared to be an instant success. After the original release there were some folks claming that the tools where too large. A small and more compact version of the tools are what would hit that certain sweet spot with the consumers. With reduction in size came compromises. The Zilla Jr. could not accept standard hex bits anymore and the ‘Lil Guppie no longer had the ability to use bits at all and was reduced to using drivers that were part of it’s design. I.D. Works came up with an excellent solution to remedy the problem. A hex driver, one that would not replace the smaller tools but would compliment them instead. Thus was born the Get-A-Way Driver, a unique hex driver that is more than ordinary and features an impressive array of tools that defiantly make a complete package with the new CRKT tools.
Small, yet deceptively versatile, the Get-A-Way Driver works well by itself or with other tools
Ever since Columbia River hit the scene with their tool line by the I.D. Works division, the knife/tool community has kept an eye on what is new from CRKT and the imaginative guys behind the tools (Launce Barber and Tom Stokes). Besides the release of the Get-A-Way Driver, they have released a carabiner tool that sports some neat features.
What kind of people would write collect and review multitools? Quite simple really- we are designers and do-ers, outdoors types and indoor types, mechanics, doctors, problem solvers and problem makers. As such, we have, as a world spanning community, put every type, size and version of multitool, multifunction knife, pocket knife and all related products to every test we could manage in as many places and environments as there are.