A while ago I was on the hunt for the “perfect” keychain tools to fill out my keychain. I realized rather quickly that those keychains are awful EDC items despite their sustained popularity in the community. They are heavy, inconvenient, hard to use, and absolutely brutal to carry, basically feeling like you have a metal pine cone in your pocket. They also involuntarily stonewash all of your gear including your cellphone’s screen. I had a bunch of tools that were really too small to carry on their own but were actually pretty nice pieces of kit, like the superb and now out of production Leatherman Squirt PS. After seeing this post on Spydercollector, I had an idea—the ultralight carry kit. And over the past ten years, I have been working on pairs of tools and lights that complement each other and at the same time make these tiny tools a bit easier to use.
There are two things about these kits that are not obvious from the outset: 1) the ways in which the physical joining of the two items improves utility; and 2) the method of connection.
Almost all of these tools suffer from one serious drawback—they are too small to use comfortably on their own (the Wenger Aphid 2 being an exception). The idea is that by combining the two you essentially make the tool not being used in a lanyard. The Spyderco Jester is a two finger knife, but by adding the light on via a semi-rigid connection, it gives you an additional bit of purchase.
I use two primary connectors: ultra small Ti split rings (usually from County Comm, found here) or locking Nite Ize S-biner No. 1s. I’d prefer the S-biners every time but some gear won’t allow for the S-biner to pass through its connection point. If that is the case, then I resort of the less flexible split rings, which, in this size require a split ring pliers to work. So that is another item you should have if you want to make some of these ultra-compact carry kits—a pair of split ring pliers, which are super cheap.
Here are my current roster of carry kits…
I like how he breaks them out by function. TSA Kit, Multitool kit, etc.
Read the whole thing at EverydayCommentary.com
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