If you were to do an exhaustive search online regarding the subject of Swiss Army Knives (SAK) you would be prone to find lots of historical and technical details and there is a plethora of “What Is The Best Swiss Army Knife?” web lists out there.  If you are a collector, or in my case a new collector, all of that information is GREAT!  But it doesn’t explain  WHY there is a connection between a boy or man and his pocketknife.

First and foremost, it is a tool which grants you independence.  I got my first knife (that I can remember) when I joined the Cub Scouts probably around 8 or 10 years old and in fact it is still in a drawer at my parents house.   Man oh man was I proud of that knife.  I’m sure as a Cub Scout I used it for whittling or to sharpen sticks when playing in the woods or maybe even used the screwdriver on my bicycle to tighten things up.

I truly get the emotional connection when a young boy gets a hardened steel knife. It’s DANGEROUS and by golly you were entrusted to operate it responsibly, and to use it as a TOOL and a LIFE SAVING DEVICE as any good scout is taught.  You are MAN ENOUGH to have something hazardous, maybe for the first time ever.

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I’ve loved pocketknives ever since I was a Cub Scout and got my first real pocketknife which looked something like the knife below.

It had a SCREWDRIVER which I guess made it my first multi-tool.   Now I’m not into knives or blades, have no desire to cut anyone or myself but the concept of carrying around useful tools in your pocket has always fascinated me and it maybe did come from scouting where they taught you to always be prepared.

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The goal in geekdom is to always advance the skills but we should NEVER forget where we came from and re-visiting it from time to time is nostalgic and cool to the up and coming geeks.

One particular rite of passage for being a geek is taking an Altoids tin and doing something geeky with it.   Here’s my favorite project and then right after showing this I’ll go further back into my geek roots with my first Altoids tin project.

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Ok…..This started innocently enough.  I’m into short wave radio and saw a website where a guy had a little cloth bag that looked kind of sort of military in style, and looked very durable.  He used the bag for a radio, power brick, antenna, etc.   As I was looking at that picture I kept keying back in on that bag………..so I emailed the guy and said “what bag is that”?

Red Oxx was the reply.  So I ordered one of these bags which was called the Lil ‘Roy.

And wow is this thing ever built great!

So I used it for the shortwave radio and then this cute gal around the corner needed something fixed.  So I’m looking and looking for something to carry my tools in and then it hits me.  Lil Roy is a tool carrying machine!

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