great gear #2: Leatherman

The Leatherman legend is well known- Tim Leatherman traveled around Europe in VW combi and wished he had one tool to fix everything. I think this is important- the leatherman, unlike the swiss army knife, was conceived with heavy machinery in mind which is why the pliars are still the best in the business and blow the alloy nonsense offered by gerber out of the window. But only on the Supertool, the Classic and the PST II. All else is pretty much to be disregarded- in fact Leatherman are an example of a company who singlehandedly destroyed their best product through boneheaded ‘innovation’ – ie. trying to make something that was a classic piece of kit into something that resembled a bottle opener made by a dress designer.

The Supertool, then, is THE leatherman. A bit big, no scissors, but a saw- which is very useful- used mine to cut a moose antler in two before now. Then there are the screw drivers- all well thought out and covering every situation- I've tightened glasses arm screws using the smallest spike/screw driver. The only redundancy is the mildly serated second knife blade- and, unlike the PST II, all the blades have the uniquely simple lock that is such a godsend when trying to cut hard wood, or turn a stuck screw while lying under a grubby motor in the rain fixing a severed exhaust pipe- also done using the Supertool.

The fact that Taiwanese and Chinese rip-offs exist probably puts people off- of course the steel is rubbish- but not that rubbish: Aron Ralston who cut off his arm after he got it stuck behind a boulder canyoneering in Arizona, used a ten dollar rip off of a Supertool to do the cutting.

The Supertool is simply the essence of a multitool, a real engineer’s design, a bit harsh, a bit brutal with its square section handle but there is no waste, no excess- and it is over engineered to really work, not break down and cause you to buy more- no Detroit hypocrisy here. It isn’t a pen knife but it can cover for one. It is a bit heavy- but that’s the price you pay for the strength of the thing. It’s real secret is it does EVERYTHING except cut your fingernails, but that’s fairly minor and you can always pack a mini-leatherman for that. There’s no corkscrew of course- but in those situations you can always push the cork in.

I had a Leatherman Wave, for a while, possibly the least offensive of the crappy new line up of new leathermen, but it wasn’t up to the job in the way the Supertool was. I’d rather take a Victorinox Mountaineer, which is no mean piece of kit in its own right – only weakness being the can opener which bent very slightly after continual use for two months.

A few years ago I walked into a Canadian outdoor shop and was shocked to find the Supertool no longer available. This sad state of affairs means you’ll have to get yours on ebay- never mind they are indestructible, and a used one might even be preferable in a way, a bit of love (no one can own a Supertool without loving it) and history accruing to its stark steel shell.