Two days ago I posted about the wooden scales I made for my Swiss Army Knife, more specifically a 84mm Tinker knife. Yesterday I took the scales off to engrave them with my name and put some slightly darker varnish on them, and today when they were dry I thought I’d go to the store and get some glue to attach them since I used up what I had left the first time around. I was browsing the multitool.org forums which I’ve done so much since I found the site, and came across a thread with a guy making brand new scales for a Leatherman Squirt by machining them out from a single piece of aluminum. I thought it was cool, and even though I don’t have the tools to machine something out from a single block of metal I do have access to enough tools to get somewhat of the same result. I jumped on my bike and went off to the workshop at work where I had everything I needed to do so.

The workshop is both awesome and annoying at the same time. They have a lot of big, awesome machines I don’t have at home and the scrap bin is enough to keep me happy for years in terms of materials, but they lack the smaller tools that I have myself, like a Dremel or precision belt sander.

I started off with a single piece of steel and used the old plastic scales to draw a rough shape on the steel piece. I cut out the rough scape using an angle grinder and continued to work it down to size. After getting the shape more correct I put the scales in a vise along with the old plastic scales and drilled straight through the old scales to get the holes perfectly aligned on the steel on the other side. After making sure it fit I worked on the shape some more while attached to the knife so get it perfect.

After that it was time to make the scales thinner and round them off. I used a sanding disc with the angle grinder and reduced the size drastically while shaping the scales, cooling them off every few seconds as they got very hot. I switched to a belt sander to get more precision and then packed up and went home, where the precision belt sander took over and smoothed it all out. Lastly I used some sand-like polishing “goo” from one of my Dremel kits to give them that brushed look, then attached the scales using super glue. The whole process took about 2.5 hours and even though the scales added a lot of weight, I like the end result very much.

Basically this project was done more out of boredom than actually needing the finished product, but at least inventing Leatherman accessories is more productive than playing Call of Duty all day. This thing is a t-shank adapter that lets me use anything with a t-shank on my Leatherman Skeletool. T-shank is the connector type of most jigsaw blades and you can also get official Leatherman accessories (saw and file) that uses this connector, as some of the models actually come with t-shank holders. My use will be jigsaw blades, creating a saw add-on for the Skeletool that is a bit more solid and reliable than my previous version.

The adapter basically consists of three metal plates: one that fits into the bit holder on the Skeletool and acts as the back plate for the adapter, the middle plate that has the t-shank cut-out that the jigsaw blade rests in and a front plate that holds the blade in place. The two first plates are glued together, and all three plates are held together with two small bolts. A third bolt and nut goes through a hole in the Skeletool’s carabiner to hold it in place when sawing. I had originally intended to have that bolt fit into a hole in the bit driver part (hence the hole you see there in the picture) but this worked so much better.

It’s not as quick to change blades as the mod I saw on multitool.org, but it’s solid and I have the tools on my Leatherman to change blades if needed (though I doubt that’ll be a common thing).

The multitool.org forums has communities for all sorts of brands of multitools, including the famous Swiss Army Knives (SAKs) – you know, like MacGyver used. I don’t really like those knives too much myself because they lack pliers so I’ve stuck with Leatherman multitools, but I do have an old SAK from before I could afford a Leatherman. I took off the scales, measured them out and cut out a couple of wooden ones to replace them. Sanded them, oiled them to preserve them and glued them on. The whole process took about 45 minutes, but I quite like the result. I almost want to start using it now, but I still prefer my Leatherman Skeletool CX. Still, a nice project for a Friday night.

By pure chance I ran across multitool.org today while watching Survivorman. The show is about a guy that goes out to survive for 7 days all alone in various wildernesses around the world, kind of like Man VS Wild just real (no giant camera team following him). My curious nature made me google for info on how the guy got power for his cameras (solar cells, carry batteries, etc) and by pure coincidence one of the link I found lead to a forum where one post mentioned the site. Besides some nice info on the main page, there’s a very active forum where there’s a dedicated section for modding. After reading through the Skeletool threads I found an awesome mod that added a t-shank holder (that can hild jigsaw blades) to the Skeletool. I’ve wanted a saw on the thing on several occasions and this solution seemed awesome. Unfortunately since I only need the saw for two more weeks at work, I didn’t want something as complicated, but it did give me motivation to try a simpler solution again, something I tried a couple of weeks ago and failed.

This time the result is very usable. Basically I cut off one of the hooks of the jigsaw blade so it would fit into the Skeletool bit holder and stick in the system that’s there to hold the bits in place. I put some electrical tape and heatshrink around the part that’s between the metal pieces of the carabiner part of the Skeletool so that it would clamp the blad and stop it from jiggling. To finish it off I made a holder using some plastic sheets and duct tape. Very “ghetto” looking, but it works, and I don’t need it for long. aybe I’ll try the Skelesurge method just for the sake of it, though DIY projects will be hard to do once I move in a few weeks.

With the exception of a glass of juice every now and then or an energy drink when I’m about to fall asleep at bad times, I only drink water. Water is free, and so like many others who drink water I carry a water bottle with me everywhere. Some months ago I found an awesome water bottle on sale, a 0.7L insulated bottle with a screw on cap. This bottle is simply awesome for its ability to keep water cold, to the degree that I can put ice cubes in it at 6AM, bring it to work outside in 30 degrees Celsius for 7 hours (with refills) and still have ice cubes left over when I get home at 2PM. However I much prefer the cap style of my Nathan water bottle as it’s much easier to use while cycling. The screw-on cap of the insulated bottle is a pain to get open and drink from without stopping, which is the single downside of the bottle. I tried finding an alternative that would do both, but with no luck. Even ignoring the fact that the alternatives I did find aren’t available in Norway (and would cost a lot to get here), I couldn’t find any bottles that did everything I wanted. The Camelbak better Bottle Insulated would be perfect, but the limited capacity (0.5L) made the price to get one here unreasonable. Kleer Kanteen’s Wide Insulated bottle was a little bigger at 0.6L, but has no sports cap (yet). Then there are the ThinkSport bottles, which are a whopping 0.75L and insulated, but don’t have the best cap and are sold out (and frankly rather ugly, not that it matters). There are also other alternatives, all with various downsides that made them less than the ideal choice.

The solution came in form of a DIY project, as always. I bought the two remaining insulated bottles from the store and used the cap from one of them to make my own sports cap. I cut off the loop of the screw-on cap and sanded it down, then used a 25mm flat drill bit to drill a hole straight through the cap. I cut off the mouth of a normal bottle water bottle (that has a sports cap) and glued it into place in the hole, and added some electrical tape for good measure. The result is a new cap “adapter” that lets me use standard caps from disposable bottles on my insulated stainless steel water bottles, including sports caps. It still isn’t as good as the straw/spout system of the Nathan and Camelbak bottles, but at least I can use the bottle while cycling now.

UPDATE July 16th:
I was at a hardware store called Clas Ohlson today and picked up a pump that had smoe plastic tubing I thought I could use to make a straw system for my bottle. I cut off the piece that holds one of the tubes so that I could glue it inside the sports cap part of my DIY spout (so I could just get a new sports cap from a bottled water bottle if needed) and then cut the tube to fit the bottle size. It worked, but since the diameter of the tube was a bit large it took some work to suck enough air out to get water through it. I therefore found one of the replacement straws that came with my Nathan bottle and used it to make a smaller straw for my bottle. The end result works perfectly – I now have the straw system from expensive water bottles coupled with a sports cap on my beloved 0.7L insulated water bottle. Next step mass production?

UPDATE July 23rd:
Well the glue I used the first time around wasn’t a success, and came apart after just a couple of days. I redid the seal with a combination of hot glue and screws and it hasn’t failed in the week since. I also found a very nice cap on a small 0.33L bottled water bottle for kids in a grocery store, which has a built in cap cover that is perfect for protecting it from dirt since I use the bottle at work and it gets thrown around outside. I didn’t redo the straw on the new cap as it works well enough without it.

I use a large forestry clearing saw (giant weed wacker) at work that requires a 19mm spanner for simple things like greasing the gears and changing the cord (or get it back out from the holder when it snaps out). The one we have available is too big to carry around and stays with the tractor, and is too worn out to work at all on the grease bolt. I bought a cheap 19mm combination spanner and grinded it to fit the bit holder of my Leatherman, which means I can have it with me at all times. It works great and frankly I think Leatherman is missing out on a business opportunity since they don’t offer anything but a bit holder and bits. I’ve seen people online makes saws, cutlery and all sorts of things for the bit holder on their Leathermans, so why not offer some official accessories?

UPDATE July 28th:

Been doing some modifications to this lately to make it sit better in the bit holder on the Skeletool. The final design that seems to work best includes a hole int he spanner and a bolt with a magnet that locks the spanner to the carabiner part of the Skeletool. This holds it firmly in place and is easy to take off/put on. The magnetic bolt has a ring on itso it can sit on the carabiner on my keychainas well as on the carabiner on the Skeletool to keep it from falling off.

I found some pieces of slate (rock) that I made into small rounded shapes using pliers. I then used a grinding wheel to smooth the sides and engraved them with my Dremel and a diamond tip. The front has the geocaching logo, while the back has text saying “TFTC from Cptnodegard”. I also bought two slate rock coasters a few weeks back which I engraved as “Geocoasters”, which I’ll probably use as FTF gifts. I’ll leave the smaller rock “coins” in larger caches that deserve “something special”.

Yesterday my dad and I drove up toi the Tryvann tower to get some nice panoramas. that plan didn’t go that well, but I did manage to get some cache finds on the way. Then, today, I took off into the city while the rest of the famiily was busy with work and school.

Turns out, most geocaches in Oslo are extremely boring. Nanos, micro, more micros and another nano. Out of 14 caches found today, only a single one had room for items. It’s of course a result of urban caching and if they are any larger they would be muggled, but it still gets boring.

Another issue is the amount of mugglers. They are EVERYWHERE, you simply can’t expect to be alone anywhere, so it comes down to being stealthy. A couple of caches I went to were inaccessible due to mugglers (one had the entire population of a kindergarten literally sitting on it), others required some peculiar moves to retrive the caches. Oslo isn’t exactly the small town I’m used to either, so suspecious activity isn’t a good idea. Still, I got through the day without being arrested.

The highlight of the day was one of the last caches I went to. A man was standing nearby looking at me, and since I had a visual on the cache but no way of retriving it I retreated a bit. He walked around the cache as well and I noticed that what I had though to be his cellphone in his hand looked too thick. I asked him in Norwegian if it was a GPS, and he answered in English that he didn’t understand. I asked again in English, and he said that it was. I fiched out my GPS from my pocket, showed it to him and said “I think we might be doing the same thing”. He smiled and agreed, and we both logged the cache. I talked to Bill (that was his name) for a while, he was on vacation from the US and had taken the chance to do some caching. Second time I run into geocachers on a cache, and both times have been tourists. Maybe I’ll get to meet a Norwegian geocacher one day too.

I also took some photos with my beloved DSLR. I really want the Canon 55-250mm lense to give me a bit more flexibility with close-ups, as the 18-55mm kit lense makes it hard to shoot things like birds, far away boats etc. I won’t get to edit the photos until tomorrow when I get home to a my own computer with a 1080p screen and Adobe Camera Raw, as these were more “artistic” and need some fine tuning. There are however a total of 5 new panoramas from these days in Oslo in the panoramas section (link in the top menu).

After walking around the city for literally 8 hours my feet are shot, so I’m glad to be going home tomorrow. I still have some caches to find closer to home, which I’ll try to find during the summer before I move.