This is the Leatherman Signal®, it’s a multitool from the famous Oregon-based company but unlike most other multitools, this was was developed specifically for use in the great outdoors, rather than on worksites or around your house.
Along with the usual assortment of pliers, knives, saw blades, etc, the Signal also has a fire-starting ferrocium rod, an emergency signalling whistle, a diamond-coated knife sharpener, and a hammer on the butt of the frame.
Along with the usual assortment of pliers, knives, saw blades, etc, the Leatherman Signal also has a fire-starting ferrocium rod, an emergency signalling whistle, a diamond-coated knife sharpener, and a hammer on the butt of the frame.
History Speedrun: Leatherman
Tim Leatherman graduated from Oregon State University in 1970 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Five years later he and his wife took a budget trip through Europe, where a cranky Fiat and a run of leaky hotel plumbing left him wishing the scout knife in his pocket had a pair of pliers on it. It was an idea that would spawn an entire industry.
Initially, he figured the prototype would take about a month. It ended up taking three years, and the patent that resulted, US 4,238,862, was issued in December of 1980 – it covered plier jaws that folded away into channel-shaped handles.
Tim soon found that selling the idea proved harder than drawing it, knife companies told him it was a tool, tool companies told him it was a gadget, and by his own account he spent three and a half years collecting rejection letters before partnering with a college friend, Steve Berliner. In the spring of 1983 the two took an order for 500 units from Cabela’s and shipped the first “Pocket Survival Tool.”
The PST stayed in production until 2004 and it’s estimated to have sold around 10 million examples, not bad for a knife that was really a tool and a tool that was really a gadget.
The Leatherman Wave arrived partway through that run, in 1998, as the first Leatherman whose blades could be reached without unfolding the pliers first, and it quickly became the company’s best seller. New York’s Museum of Modern Art holds a 2004 Wave in its design collection, credited to engineer Benjamin Rivera, who went on to run the company.
Leatherman still manufactures its tools in Portland, employs more than 540 people, sells in over 80 countries, and backs what it makes with a 25 year warranty.
This is the Leatherman Signal®, it’s a multitool from the famous Oregon-based company but unlike most other multitools, this was was developed specifically for use in the great outdoors, rather than on worksites or around your house.
The Leatherman Signal
Leatherman developed the Signal with a design entirely built around outdoor use rather than the work site or general home maintenance and garage tasks. There are 19 tools, but the ones that set it apart from its siblings in the Leatherman model family are its survival items – a removable ferrocerium rod, a safety whistle sharing its housing, a diamond-coated knife sharpener, and a hammer surface on the frame.
Leatherman calls it the first compact multi-tool with a built-in ferro rod. For the uninitiated, a ferrocerium rod, also called fire steel, is pyrophoric metal alloy that shoots off sparks at temperatures of up to 3,315°C (6,000°F) when another metal is scraped along its surface. Ferrocerium can be used to start campfires in hot or cold weather, in the wet or dry (or snow), and each one is typically good for thousands of strikes before it needs to be replaced.
The other tool included in the Signal are a little more familiar, it has needlenose and regular pliers, replaceable wire and hard-wire cutter inserts, a wire stripper, a 2.73 inch 420HC combo blade with straight and serrated sections, a saw, an awl, can and bottle openers, a 1/4 inch hex driver, a large bit driver, 1/4 inch and 3/16 inch box wrenches, and a carabiner.
Every tool except the plier head locks in place for safety, and the knife and saw are reachable without opening the handles, and the blade can be deployed with one-hand through a thumb hole.
Leatherman developed the Signal with a design entirely built around outdoor use rather than the work site or general home maintenance and garage tasks. There are 19 tools, but the ones that set it apart from its siblings in the Leatherman model family are its survival items – a removable ferrocerium rod, a safety whistle sharing its housing, a diamond-coated knife sharpener, and a hammer surface on the frame.
Closed, the Signal measures in at 4.5 inches and weighs 7.5 ounces. The frame is 420 stainless steel, and a number of finishes are available – a classic a DLC coating, or a series of colored versions that use Cerakote, a thin ceramic layer that improves abrasion and corrosion resistance. The ferro rod runs about 1.75 inches and is struck with the spine of the saw.
The Leatherman Signal can now be bought direct from the official Leatherman Amazon store here in your choice of eight colorways, and each comes with a 25 year warranty.
Images courtesy of Leatherman
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
