I own a lot of multi-tools, but among full-sized multi-tools I think my newest one is unique.
I started with the original Leatherman “Survival Tool” long ago, and have owned several since, right up through the Leatherman Ti (not TTi). Actually, I do own one later Leatherman, the Wingman, but I don’t really like it at all and never carry it.
In general, I prefer Leatherman to Gerber, but I think Leatherman sort of misses the target at the lighter end of the full-size spectrum, and where legal I ALWAYS carry a knife. As a consequence I don’t really need another one-hand-opening knife in my multi-tool, so when I’m on my own property or just around town I find I most often carry a Gerber MP300, a convenient, relatively lightweight option that pretty much has everything I’m likely to need and nothing more. I love the do-anything capability of the Ti (and TTi), but IMHO they’re just too heavy to pocket, they only work well with a belt sheath, which is a nuisance.
Speaking of weight… I think we all know where multi-tools are going, eventually… they’re going to use titanium at least for those chunky plier jaws where a large percentage of the weight is, and maybe some of the other non-edged tools. I know it’s going to be expensive at first, but you’d think with falling Ti prices SOMEBODY would be doing it by now, and probably raking in at the top-end of the market. Why is it not happening?
Anyway, as I say, I have a lot of the things. Somewhat to my surprise, I just ordered one more. Why?
Well, yes, the price dipped, but I mean other than that…
I’ve had my eye on this one for some time, it’s the “SOG Powerlock Traveler Multi-Tool”.
“Traveler” as in, it supposedly gets through the TSA at airports… and according to reviews it actually seems to, at least mostly.
Of course, we now live in a world where the enforcers are empowered to decide what the laws are and act according to their own whims, where they explicitly tell you that TSA folks can “use their own judgement” to pretty much enforce whatever they feel like enforcing, and confiscate any property that they want to in the name of “security”, even if it’s within their regulations, to be sold on Ebay in lot batches later, if it doesn’t, ahem, just mysteriously disappear first. I’m sure that NEVER happens.
We used to have some unflattering names for governments that operate that way, but I guess that’s all old-fashioned now.
In any case, flying is not what I intend it for. To be honest, when I was younger and things were more civilized I loved to fly, and I did it a lot. These days I detest dealing with the airlines in any way, riding in packed flying cattle-cars, and especially dealing with the TSA (“The line on the right is for those who prefer to be sexually groped, the line on the left is for those who prefer to be irradiated”). I’ve deliberately avoided work that requires it even occasionally (and so far managed to avoid it when it was sprung on me unexpectedly), so I’m not certain that I’ll ever fly commercially again.
The point of this tool is that it has no knife blade on it. They’ve also omitted any saw blade or awl. There is a pair of scissors, which is actually larger than the omitted awl blade, but apparently that’s okay. Mostly. On a good day.
In a saner world the omission of the blade would be a liability, of course, but we don’t live in a saner world, we live in a country where the enforced knife laws can change multiple times in a short stroll. Where I write this right now one can carry a folding knife with no size limits, even locked open and in a sheath, but even a tiny fixed-blade knife if not concealed could get you jail time. Less than 20 miles away, within the bounds of the nearest city, millions of residents and millions of commuters are subjected to a law that says that the maximum blade length that you can carry legally is two-and-a-half inches… which is just too short for many tasks, never mind defense. I’m told that the 2.5 inch regulation also pertains to Boston, Chicago and Washington DC, and for all federal government buildings, which, as I’ve noted elsewhere, may not be what you’re thinking- they can include museums, art galleries, and even food courts. In Washington DC, where such places abound, the double regulation applies, it’s against the federal rules to have it in the building but it’s also against local law, so the armed guards with the metal detectors and x-ray machines don’t simply prevent someone with a larger knife from entering the building, they don’t even just confiscate it, they call the police and have them arrested, or at least that’s what they say they’ll do. Yes, arrested, for having a pocket knife with a blade maybe two-and-three-quarters of an inch long. That’s a damn small knife to jail somebody for.
To the best of my knowledge the SOG Powerlock Traveler is the only full-sized multi-tool available that has no knife blade. All of the full-sized multi-tools from Leatherman and Gerber that I’m aware of (and I have a number of them) have knife blades longer than 2.5 inches. Often just a bit longer, but longer, and the law doesn’t care by how little you violate it.
Now, I’m not saying that the SOG Traveler won’t get confiscated, whether by police, security guards or the TSA. I think it may well be. If you’re one of those poor souls who has to run the gauntlet of “security” every day, and I’ve been there, for years at a time, then it almost seems inevitable that you’re going to run across an enforcer having a bad day, or just a jerk, and they will take the thing away from you whether it’s technically permitted or not.
What I am saying is that my guess is that, since you ARE technically complying with the law, you aren’t going to court and to jail. That’s a huge difference. And, of course, some dark day having the thing might actually save your life. If you commute into the city, into work, especially by public transit, it’s a long walk back.
What the SOG Traveler does is divorce the multi-tool from the entire knife issue. I’m always going to be carrying a knife wherever I can legally anyway (or more than one, the laws are mercifully silent about multiple legal knives… so far) but this means that I can vary the knife or knives that I carry to remain “legal” without changing the multi-tool I carry as well. That’s more than a theoretical advantage, strong familiarity with a multi-tool can save valuable seconds over and over again in an emergency. It also means that if a knife is confiscated there’s a good chance I can retain the multi-tool. In theory, I can even use it the way it’s intended, in places where knives . . It’s an interesting choiceIt’s an interesting choiceare prohibited entirely. However unlikely needing it may be, some tool-enhanced capability is better than none.
So the question becomes, given that I’ll have a knife where legal anyway, is the SOG Traveler worth considering as a main EDC multi-tool?
It’s a great question. They’ve made major concessions to keep this tool legal, as noted it’s missing not just a knife blade but a saw and an awl, and it their place there are some unusual choices, as though they were scraping the bottom of the barrel in the design shop to round out the tool selection. One of the interesting things that they give you is a sort-of flattened quarter-inch socket driver, where Leatherman and Gerber opt for bit drivers. I’ve carried both of those brands on many motorcycle rides, and given that there are Phillips and flat screwdrivers, for motorcycle use the socket driver actually makes a lot of sense- but of course you have to have sockets or tools that will fit onto it for it to be useful at all. The other brand multi-tools that have bit drivers at least carry one bit in the tool itself- not so, with this arrangement.
Probably the most glaring odd choice is something they’re calling a “Robertson drive”, which I gather is some sort of square-hole driver. I can’t really see ever needing it… and it’s taking the place of an awl, which is a very valuable tool. I’m assuming anything like an awl is prohibited by the TSA (arbitrary idiocy, the scissors are larger) so they had no choice, but I really don’t think that jurisdictions with just a blade-length policy are going to care whether you have a little awl well under that length at all… so it’s worth noting that the Powerlock series can be disassembled to some degree for repair, and at least some of the multi-tool replacement tools are available for sale individually from SOG, the awl being one of them. I may well replace the “Robertson drive” on mine, since I’m not sure I’d ever try to actually get on a plane with this thing anyway.
I’ll probably write elsewhere about some choices for legal knives in different locations and jurisdictions, but I think for a lot of folks that value preparedness but have to deal with irrational laws there is real value in divorcing a multi-tool from the knife issue entirely. That’s why I’ve ordered one. I’m going to give it a try. I wish it were made in the US, but it is what it is.
– Robert the Wombat
