EDC Silliness

This blog hasn't been very active lately, but not because I haven't been! We are almost finished with a pretty big remodel of our office area at home, which involved work by me and Troy Nace, and also by the local firm Nice Work Lancaster. Our very un-square space caused them a lot of headaches as they laid the Pergo flooring. Eventually there will be built-in drawers and cabinets under the worktop on the left.

 I'm also deep (as in "over my head," maybe) in a project to rebuild the carburetors on Beck TD. Here's a teaser of an upcoming post, assuming I ever get them back together:

But today's post is about something more prosaic, and in a sense silly: the "EDC Movement." EDC is an acronym for Everyday Carry, and a simple Google search on that term will take you right down the rabbit hole - it really is a "movement." The guys (and yes, it is almost universally males) that get obsessed with this write endlessly about the fine points of the knives, tools, flashlights and other stuff that they stuff their pockets with. Vendors, quick to sense a market, have latched onto the term also to try to sell a mountain of that same stuff.

Since I carry a lot of stuff in my pockets too, I'm susceptible to all this, but I try to stay away from the EDC sites. No use throwing gasoline on the fire! I do carry a multitool with me at all times, but it's a tiny one by Leatherman. I am partial to their multitools for three reasons:

1. "Leatherman" is an actual person, Tim Leatherman. He invented the multitool as it is commonly known now, so nearly all of the cheap Chinese tools are knock-offs of his intellectual property.

2. Leatherman tools are made, or at least assembled, in the USA. 

3. Leatherman tools are high quality, and in particular, the knife blades are of good enough steel that they can be resharpened multiple times.

My tool of choice is the Leatherman PS4 Squirt, and it's only a couple of inches long when closed. Mine is pretty beat up after years of almost daily use!

I also own one of the larger Leathermans, the Skeletool. I don't normally carry it, but recently I decided that having an expensive tool that just sits in a drawer is kind of stupid. I bought a leather belt sheath for it so I could wear it in the shop. That sheath has elastic pockets on either side for additional slim tools, and I decided that a slender flashlight and a pen would be just the ticket.

After a good bit of research, I decided on a Maglight Solitaire for the flashlight, and I think it's the best 10 bucks I ever spent on an LED light. It's powered by a single AAA battery, and plenty bright. It's so small (3" long, 1/2" in diameter) that it disappears in a pocket.

OK, now for the pen. It turns out there is a huge set of "pocket pens" that also have rabid devotees. I read ads for a while, but it seemed crazy to spend 20 bucks, plus $5 each for refills, for a little pen that would run out of ink faster than a free pen from a hotel or something. So, one evening when Mary Ellen was watching a show that didn't interest me at all, I went to my Sherline lathe and made a classy little pen:

A cut-down ballpoint refill from a free pen is a press fit in the nose. It works fine, but I was wishing it had a cap over the point. Then I looked at another freebie pen and thought, "Duh! Just cut the plastic pen down!"

Only took a minute, but since I'm me, I couldn't resist using the lathe to make the cut perfectly square:

So, here's that little bit of EDC gear. Yes, the geeks that obsess over this definitely call the junk in their pockets their "gear," and the Internet is overrun with proud pictures like this one.

Since I put this set together and starting using it on project days, I actually do find it invaluable, using one or the other piece multiple times a day. I am dangerously close to becoming "that guy" that always has a multitool pouch on his belt, at least when wearing jeans. And I wear jeans 100% of the time, except on Sunday morning in church!