General Purpose Tools

Atwood Mini Tools

Keychain-size, steel pocket utensils

The beauty of these tools is they feel like a fetish item in your hand and, due to their size, you can always have them with you. They’re handmade by Peter Atwood and have incredible strength because he uses a specialty stainless steel made via a powder metallurgy process (“The powder is compressed under significant force to a homogenous, solid state and the steel is rolled to required stock size. Molecules are uniform, inclusions of impurities are insignificant”).

Both of my EDC knives — a Swiss Army Cybertool and a SOG Multi Tool — have slightly bent tips on the main blades because I tried to open or pry something I shouldn’t have. That will never happen with the Mini Son of Prything I carry in my pocket or my Prybaby. The trend in tools is to include more and more features. An Atwood piece – and there are a variety of them worth checking out — is generally designed to do a couple of things really well, and it does: open a package, pull a nail, cut some tape, strip a wire, etc. There are obviously other discovered tasks — like propping up a new power supply in my computer while I get a couple of screws in — but it’s calling on that intended purpose that is most gratifying.

-- Greg Needham 07/26/07

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