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!
And now for something completely different! Some time ago I mentioned that my phone was “like” a Swiss Army Knife in that it performed a number of different functions that made my daily life a lot easier- things like multiple forms of communications like email, voice calls, text messages and so on, coupled with web browsing, calculator functions, e-book reading, document viewing and editing... the list goes on. Well now I’ve gone one step further and have an actual Swiss Army Knife on my phone!
In case anyone hasn’t gotten the word yet, frequent contributor PTHYCRPG, aka Rick has been doing a lot of charity auctions on EDCSource.com- these are of interest to SAK collectors as they are all quite collectible, and especially of interest to SOSAK members since the charity Rick has chosen to donate the proceeds to is our one and only Felinevet!
I recently got an amazing gift from a member over at Multitool.org- it's a plaque for displaying SAKs!
Yes, you read that correctly, we are six years old as of this month!The SOSAK forum at Knifeforums.com is a lot older than that, but this site has been online for a full six years now!And, for those of you noticing how late this month’s offerings are, being late is a bit of a tradition around here!
Originally it had been scheduled for a June launch instead of July, but I’d had a nasty bout with some kidney stones in the end of May that lasted a few weeks.The doctor that performed the stone removal insisted that he’d gotten them all and claimed I was faking it as the pain went into its second week, and I was a wreck, barely able to function.Of course, my job was also in transition at the time and so wondering whether I was still going to be employed wasn’t helping.A week later I passed the final stone (the one the doctor insisted wasn’t there!) and I instantly felt better- sure I was about 35 pounds lighter and exhausted, full of residual morphine, Demerol, dilaudid and oxycontin, but I could finally stand up straight!
So, we went back to work putting the finishing touches on the site and getting it ready to fly.In those days it was just Esteban and I, and Esteban was also busy putting together the store software for Tim and Tom in what became the Felinevet and Rotokid shops we’ve been featuring here since the very beginning.
All in all SOSAKOnline has been a lot of fun over the years, but the reality is that I’ve just been regurgitating information provided by members, so it’s really a celebration of all of us, not anything I’ve done specifically.This year we passed 10,000 members, and are already well on our way to 20,000, so my guess is that we are doing something right!
For over a year now I’ve been running EDCSource as an alternative to the Big Guys and all of their increasingly overbearing rules and fees. I felt that people deserved a market where they could buy and sell knives, tools and outdoors gear in an open, friendly environment and we’ve had at least some limited success with it so far.
Since another year has passed I thought I would celebrate it by recounting a few of my favorite articles of our fifth year. Some of them were mine, some are from others, but each one sticks out in my mind as having had something specifically interesting about them. So, in no particular order, here are some of my favorites:
For years I have heard folks talking about great finds ate flea markets, yard sales and other informal gatherings, and it’s been a source of frustration for me as I’ve never found anything worth bragging about myself.The closest I ever got to finding a hidden gem was the white scaled, black bladed Richartz knife I wrote about some time ago.
With camping and outdoor season upon us in my neck of the woods I thought I would take a close look at some of the various methods available for securing ropes for people like me- the unskilled at knot tying. Amusingly enough, I work in the shipping industry, often verifying the security and integrity of cargo, so you’d think I would know a bit about knots. This is not the case, and my personal knot repertoire is limited to granny and slip knots. So, since I’m sure I can’t be the only SAK collector who spends time outside and appreciates a good method of safely and quickly securing a rope, I thought I would have a look at a few different types.
Tradition is a wonderful thing, but it’s not always something that needs to be followed. Once in a while it’s nice to break from tradition, which is what we are doing with this year’s SOSAKOnline Knife Of The Year. Usually Travis comes up with some options and we have a vote on it, but another project I have been working on seems to have been held up for a variety of reasons, but is finally a go, and I decided to merge it with the KOTY project.
One of the many SwissTool variants that made my “white whale list” is the Australian Army Issue Black SwissTool. Well, it seems that particular white whale has been caught, not by shrewd searching or unyielding focus on my part, but because it saw fit to throw itself in my boat! Putting that crude metaphor aside, the real story is that a friend helped me buy another oddball SAK, but when it arrived on my doorstep, it had also brought this SwissTool with it!