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!

 Following in last month’s article about the Blue ALOX Sea Pioneer, we have the Blue ALOX Midshipman.

 A couple of months ago I did a video on swapping scales, which according to our in-house parts dealer Rotokid was a major success. I’m glad to hear that many of you liked it, and found it helpful. Since so many people watched it, I’m going to assume you all remember the results of one of the swaps- the yellow scaled Compact, a knife that has found its way to the very top of my Every Day Carry list.

One question I get asked an awful lot is what to do with a broken blade- send it in for warranty work, ask Victorinox to repair it, find a modder to do it or try to do it yourself.  Well, here's one member's answer- Ptisuisse has put together a step by step guide to replacing a single tool, and he makes it look easy!  I'm not saying it is easy, but he sure makes it look that way!

 I first saw this a while back, done by Neil Bee, aka NKB, and I finally got around to trying it myself. The recent scale swap video gave me the extra scales I needed to experiment on, so I decided to give it a shot myself and see what happens! I’m not certain if I’m doing it the way Neil did, but I do like the results!

Model 51
In 1951 The Swiss Army knife was seven millimeters shorter and was made a little slimmer. The weight fell from 125g to 90g. That was a 35 g loss. The knife blade material was rust resistant and the blade was again arched. This blade design was very similar to original Model 1890. The screwdriver blade now had a notch cut into it and could be used to strip electrical cables. The rivets holding the can opener and awl are now the hollow rivet style
. The diameter of the hole is about two millimeters. This hole in the knife allowed a cord to be attached. This cord on the knife became a plumb line when you needed to estimated distance for the assault Rifle Mod 57. This greatly aided in the accuracy at longer distances for the Mod 58 rifle grenades.

See my April 2010 article.
http://www.sosakonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=531&Itemid=35

I recently got an amazing gift from a member over at Multitool.org- it's a plaque for displaying SAKs!

 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!

 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!

 Anyone in Canada who spends any time biking, kayaking, canoeing, hiking, or camping is probably familiar with Mountain Equipment Co Op. They are a large outfitter up here in the Great White North, and a usual shopping spot for me. In fact, they have been the supplier for a number of articles here in the past- articles like the Wenger Sharpener for example.

 

 

Every once in a while someone spots one of these for sale and wonders if these are indeed issued to French Troops. I have wondered the same thing each and every time someone has asked, and now, thanks to Ptisuisse, we have the answer.