Sosakonline Archive

Please note that all content in this section has been imported from our old Sosakonline website and may contain broken links. We are revising it as we can, but these things take time, and it's a lot of content to get through!

Some time ago large online retailer, Smokey Mountain Knifeworks commissioned a couple of different models, exclusive to them. Since then our own Felinevet managed to pick up a limited number of these models to supply SOSAK members. Due to circumstances in my personal life I didn't manage to jump on these as quickly as I'd have liked and only managed to get one of the two models.



The model I did manage to get was the Master Gardener, which comes with green scales, the same color as this year's SOSAK Knife Of The Year, and so it makes a nice set! Of course, the green is nice in it's own right, as anyone who owns a Hunter Green SAK will attest. Unfortunately, it's only standard scales, not the Plus style scales with the pen and pin on board, although like all modern scales, there is a hole for the pin, so you can insert one of your own.


Unlike many other special models, the Master Gardener isn't merely a hot-rodded “line” model with fancy scales, it's a model unto itself, with a tool lineup not available on any other SAK. Built on the standard 91mm frame, the Master Gardener features a main blade and pruning blade, wood saw, in body phillips, LED light, can and bottle openers. On the flip side is another phillips driver an awl.

The LED light is the one found on all other 91mm SAKs, powered by two lithium button cells.

I have to say that while I needed to get one, since I'm a hardcore SAK junkie, I do find this to be an excellent example of how not just anyone can or should design a SAK. The redundancy of the phillips driver is the kind of thing that Victorinox's designers usually try to avoid in producing various models, and swapping out the back mounted phillips would allow one to carry an eyeglass screwdriver, even if one doesn't have much interest in the corkscrew itself.


All in all, it won't be a carry model for me, but it will be yet another coveted part of my collection, and I am looking forward to chasing down it's companion model, the Master Electrician!