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Review on LEATHERMAN Curl Multitool: Your Ultimate Stainless Steel Everyday Essential Tool with Nylon Sheath by Chad Myers

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Oddly I like it more than the wave

For some context here, I've been a prototyper for about ten years, I build a lot of stuff and almost always need a multi tool on my side. I haven't needed my powerful Surge as much since the outbreak of Covid, but I still need the multi-tool quite often. I have the Wave, Skeleton, Juice, and many other leather items, but they're either clunky in my pocket, too small, or just don't have enough features. Meet Leatherman Curl. The Leatherman Curl is pretty cool and has some subtle features that are pretty nice improvements over the Wave. While it's really nice to have 4 tools that you can open from the outside on a shaft, personally I find that I only ever use a knife and saw and sometimes a serrated knife when I just need something sharp to use to open something. . Removing the two tools means the curl is lighter and thinner, making it a lot more pocket-friendly. Replacing the eyeglass tool with an awl was also a great move by the leather craftsmen. What's also quite nice about the way they designed the curl is that all of the internal tools are locked with a slip link mechanism. This reduces the number of parts in leather items, which means you can save some money. Because wedges use a cam and spring to engage, they can also be adjusted when the spring actually contacts the internal tools' cam, making the tool easier to access. To put it in layman's terms, you can pull the tools out from the inside without ripping your nails off! Of the many different leathers I've owned, this one has the most comfortable interiors. Some of the things I noticed about mine were only minor annoyances, namely that there was a noticeable burr on one of the screws and some of the edges had very, very fine burrs that chipped off with a pass or two of the file. For me it is not a decisive factor. I think the only downside is that I'd rather have a saw than a file on the outside of the tool, so I'll buy a spare saw from the shaft and replace it. Again, this is not the deciding factor. Overall, Curl covers 95% of the tasks I use a multi-tool for, and it's incredibly pocket-friendly, wallet-friendly, and even nail-friendly. Oddly enough I think I prefer this to the Wave and I'll probably buy a backup or two in the not too distant future!

Pros
  • good thing
Cons
  • I don't remember but there was something