Flat cutting length is only some 27mm (a little over an inch) however there is another 10mm or so of curved bade beyond this. I do wish Leatherman had produced an option of 154CM steel as they have on some of their other, larger tools.īlade length is 41mm (1.6″) however not all of this is usable length. The steel will retain an edge for some time. They come with a good edge from new and can easily be sharpened. There are many accounts of this tool being confiscated however so I wouldn’t recommend it.īlades are made from 420HC stainless steel, chisel cut, which can annoy some users but I have never had any trouble with them. In theory, this means that the Style PS can be taken through airport security. The Squirt E4 and P4 do not have scissorsĮight of the Leatherman keychain tools have blades, the Style PS is the exception. Bottom row: Leatherman Style, Squirt ES4, Squirt PS4, Style PS. Top row: Leatherman Style CS, Squirt S4, Micra. The remaining two keychain tools, the Squirt E4 and P4, do not have any scissors. Leatherman will fix these under their excellent warranty. They will still break though, especially if put to too heavy a task. The springs on these smaller Leathermans are more robust than the scissors found on small Victorinox multi-tools such as the ubiquitous Classic. The scissors can be opened wide to enable resharpening. Each of have a captive torsion spring, though to a lesser efficiency than their spring loaded larger cousins. The remaining four have small scissors, akin to those on the Victorinox Classic, that are accessed from the back of the multi-tool when still closed. The scissors on the Micra are a very slightly different form to those on the Style CS and Squirt S4, more akin to the scissors found on Swiss Army Knives, however all three are equally efficient at cutting, though the Micra scissors can open at the tip when cutting thicker items. Three tools have quite large, reasonably powerful and efficient spring-loaded scissors, using cams and back-springs, as their jaws when the tools are unfolded. There are two major differences in these scissors. There are seven tools with scissors in the range of Leatherman keychain multi-tools, These are the Micra, three in the Squirt series and two in the Style series. Small Leatherman Style scissors on the left compared with those on Victorinox Classic The retired models can still be picked up on the second hand market, though one or two are beginning to get scarce. At the time of writing (2019), five of the keychain tools are still manufactured new and are available for purchase. On the back of this popular product, Leatherman went on to release another eight keychain models, the most recent in 2011. So popular and successful was it that it is still manufactured today. In 1996 they released the first of their keychain multi-tools. Leatherman have released a huge variety of tools over the years, they continue to do so, always seeking out another niche market or tweaking existing tools for the collector market. I actually purchased one when they were released and worked it into the ground, another of my multi-tools that never survived the years. It was what it was named- a mini tool, with fold handles to make it full size. However that had no scissors and at 114g was no keychain tool, it didn’t even have a ring for attaching it to anything. Just three years later, in 1986, Leatherman shrunk their tools and released a new smaller model, that was the MiniTool (in production until 2004). Having purchased one out of curiosity, it subsequently got me out of a fix on many an occasion, but only at work, it was never taken with me when hiking as it was simply too large and heavy. At their release Three Points of the Compass looked at these new offerings in the outdoor gear shops and wondered why anyone would ever want a pair of pliers on their knife. Leatherman began making multi-tools in 1983 when it released the PST (Pocket Survival Tool). Particularly as some of these models are now discontinued and beginning to get harder to find. But I thought I would spend some time here looking at some of the very small multi-tools produced by Leatherman over the years that incorporate both my desired scissors and blade. I’ll come to which one in a later blog in this series. There is one little Leatherman in particular that is usually stuffed into my ditty bag or First Aid Kit and has been carried with me for thousands of trail miles. Some have been carried on my backpacking trips and I liked, and again, others less so. I am also a big fan of the small ‘keychain’ multi-tools produced by USA company Leatherman over the years. Various Swiss Army Knives have proved themselves fantastic for taking hiking, others less so. A Leatherman keychain multi-tool formed a vital component of this The ditty bag/repair kit that Three Points of the Compass carried on the Cape Wrath Trail in 2018.
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