Let's talk SAK's !

great work! those are the three "tools" that get most used by myself as well, I do like the little tweezers, but those can go in my FAK easy enough

do you happen to have the name (or link) of the fellow that is doing the modding- don't trust myself :)
 
Jeff H said:
Why do you think I picked the silver one to experiment on?;)

Wish I had bought half a dozen blue Farmers when they were $15 a year or so ago.:(
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Yea, I only have one... I like all the "other" colors.

Ski

SAK2.jpg
 
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Stelth said:
Makes sense...again, nice job.
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Thanks again, Stealth. Now, I am shopping for used SAKs as "donors." I may have woken a monster.:o

mtwarden said:
great work! those are the three "tools" that get most used by myself as well, I do like the little tweezers, but those can go in my FAK easy enough

The tweezers are great and I should buy half a dozen spares. I bet I couild work a pair into the next mod too. May be more work on Alox, but there's got to be a way.

do you happen to have the name (or link) of the fellow that is doing the modding- don't trust myself :)
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Check your messages. I have to tell you that this was a bit of tedius work, especially peening the heads on the back. Doing the front (off the knife), they came out perfect until I flattened them a bit while peening the back.

Modoc ED said:
Would you care to share the diameter of the pins?
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The pivot pins were .117" to .119" and the spring pin (middle one) was .095". I used .115" brass stock after getting Kaleb's approval. E-mail me if you want more detail so I don't derail the thread.

ohski said:
Yea, I only have one... I like all the "other" colors....
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Hey, that black one is nice too!:thumbup:
I just saw the BLUE ALOX ELectrician Plus is "out." Same as a Farmer but a sheep's foot with a wire stripping notch (a useful one) in place of the can opener.
 
Jeez I hear ya Jeff....Those were a steal.

Nice job on the farmer....You should really do a tutorial on it..Id love to do that to one.
 
j williams said:
Jeez I hear ya Jeff....Those were a steal.

Nice job on the farmer....You should really do a tutorial on it..Id love to do that to one.
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You wouldn't happen to remember where that blue one in my first pic came from would you?;) I think that came as part of a trade we made a couple years ago.

I would do a tutorial but I would have to post it elsewhere and those who visit whatever place that is probably know how to do it already. My interests lie primarily in steel as it pertains to wilderness and survival applications AND in self-sufficiency, such as in the case of making or mod'ing the gear to support those interests. That's why I shared it here. Besides, it's now my favorite SAK. That would be a stretch for any mod trying to justify not nmoving it.

That said, I would be happy to share the details,.... if I can find your e-mail address. I lost a bunch of them when the old machine puked.:barf:
 
That makes perfect sense to me....

Ah! I thought it looked familiar! :p I think I had 6 or 7 of every color at one time. Gave em, and traded em all away but the one I use. Its a shame Victorinox doesnt capitalize on the desire for these in colors, and - the can opener/bottle opener, and a freakin pocket clip. I cant believe Vic doesnt do any of those.... I believe they do runs for Swiss Bianco so they have to know the market is there. Scibeer did awesome stuff with SAKs, but I dont think hes doin anything anymore...

Anyways....my email is cavalryjake@yahoo.com
 
Jeff H said:
Stelth, thanks for the compliment.:thumbup:

It wasn't all about the .107" difference in thickness and 26% reduction in weight (I figured someone would want to know this). That was simply a happy side efffect of losing a couple tools that were doing ME no good to tote around. Yeah, it's noticably more compact and will get carried more too though.

I have a multi-tool in my pack in case I need a screwdriver, so no sense having extra screwdrivers in my pocket. The can opener was terrible at best, comparatively speaking anyway. I am a child of the "c-ration days" and I have a P38, plus a backup, at any given time and it works beautifully. The bottle opener, well, I might just be lazy, but I am not lugging glass bottles of anything out into the woods and then dragging the empty bottles back on top of that. Besides, there is a bottle opener on my multi-tool in case I decide to go back on my word.;)

And for my biggest complaint about the Farmer - the lanyard ring mount that digs into my hand when I use the saw or the knife blade - GONE and GOOD RIDANCE! Man, I loved the idea, but once I started using the knife, I decided it really should have been a good ol' fashioned and bulky bail.

Now that I figured this out, I will watch for an old, beat up electrician's knife at the flea market and grab it to salvage the bail if I want to put a "dummy cord" on my SAK.

:foot:Now, if anyone is offended by my outspoken derision of the parts I removed, please don't be. These parts served me no useful purpose, especially that lanyard thing. The Farmer is a great knife, but I saw in it an out-in-the-woods tool that could do a LOT of what I need to do out there and it's trim enough to slip in along with other stuff and always have it with me.

By the way, this was not my idea. I saw it somewhere, maybe on SOSAK. There is a fella who does professional mods on SAKs for folks and this is a popular mod. Also, I needed to goof off for a while. Been a long time and it was nice to work on something that didn't HAVE to be done NOW.
http://www.sosakonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=318&Itemid=0

Again, thanks to my friend Kaleb for the help. I could have let him do it, but I just have to mess with stuff. Next one will be perfect.:thumbup::D
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Loven the whole story. The knife looks great.
 
A lot of people complain about the can opener, but it also has the small screwdriver, which works with phillips head screws. One of the most used tools on the knife.
 
jackman2 said:
A lot of people complain about the can opener, but it also has the small screwdriver, which works with phillips head screws. One of the most used tools on the knife.
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Yes, and I don't mean to berate the tools across the board either. I removed mine to make it a woods-specific tool. If I were carrying it under other circumstances, those tools would have been more useful to me and I could have tweaked the can opener to make it work. Some may work fine, right out of the box, but the ones I have had required some attention.

For anyone who wants their can opener to work, the problem with mine was that the "claw" that hooks under the can's rim, was too rounded to get a bite and the part that was supposed to pierce the can had a large flat spot on it. Bending the tip of the claw toward the scale, and then making it flush again with stones would give you a sharper tip to bite into the can's rim. Since the design makes you work forward, that claw hangs up a little and is not as convenient as dragging the claw on a P38 as you reposition for the next cut. Sharpening the piercing part would be easy enough but keep the angle high and don't polish it like a knife edge. Some toothiness on that part makes it work better. The can opener on my blue Farmer is better but could use the claw tweak. The one on the silver one was pretty bad.
 
If you look around, you can find one of the older style SAK's. They don't have the polished and rounded tools. In my opinion, they work much better. They grip everything. The polished ones might look nicer, but they don't work nearly as well. Some of the old ones had brass liners. Very nice looking.
 
I like the idea of the woods tool. But I have too many uses for a prying tool, to take out the screwdriver. I also don't carry a multitool in the woods. Nice idea though. I'll try to post pics of the difference in tools.
 
jackman2 said:
If you look around, you can find one of the older style SAK's. They don't have the polished and rounded tools. In my opinion, they work much better. They grip everything. The polished ones might look nicer, but they don't work nearly as well. Some of the old ones had brass liners. Very nice looking.
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Yea, the newer (everthing I've seen new since I was a kid) stuff must be tumbled... I've seen pics of old SAKs and they looked like they were cut out and then ground to shape.

Ski
 
ohski said:
Yea, the newer (everthing I've seen new since I was a kid) stuff must be tumbled... I've seen pics of old SAKs and they looked like they were cut out and then ground to shape.

Ski
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Ya they are awesome. They really grip screws and cans very well. When you see them in pictures they look like they have lines on them. Newer have the mirror finish. Classy, but not as effective.
 
I finally got a pic of my current favs, a Sig Lite with my "tool keyring" and my new OH Soldier.
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I think the P-38 is the only bit of redundancy, but I've mentioned before as liking one as my preparedness talisman.

Matt in Tx
 
A couple of recent additions. I'm carrying the Silver one regularly.

farmersilveraloxribbed1.jpg


farmerredaloxribbed1.jpg


I started drinking Stella Artois beer imported from Belgium (pretty good beer) and it doesn't have a twist off cap. Hence the bottle opener on the Farmer comes in handy -- a matter of survival you might say!!:eek::)
 
My first SAK ever was the Vic Camper....the red plastic slabs came off after a couple months and I ditched that knife.

Then I found the alox handled Farmer which seemed ideal for the most part. I picked one up and carried that one for over 20 years befor it was stolen.

I for one never cared much for the can opener on the Farmer, and the cap lifter has never been used for that purpose.

Recently I decided to pick up another SAK and happened upon the Pioneer Harvester with a pruner blade in place of the can opener. So i picked it up and it is a great tool. Now if I could just get it with a bail like the the Wenger SI.

The saw blade IMHO turned out to be one of the most used tools on my SAK's. unbelievable how many times I've used em on the job and elsewhere to cut everything from drywall and pvc...to use in the woods.

The way to get the ideal SAK looks to be buying all the models that have a tool I like on em, take em apart, and put em back together to fit my ideal layout. Which would prove spendy.

Wish Vic had a custom order dept.
 
WildMike, if that something you could do regularly.. I could potentially see you makinging enough money to buy all the knives you want...
 
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