Gerber Multi-Plier 600 Mod

[Big Frank]

There was a guy on YouTube that came up with some mods for the Gerber Multi-Plier 400, that applied equally well to the Multi-Plier 600. Yesterday I finally found the small washer I dropped last month and finished my own mod tonight on my Multi-Plier 600 - Black, Carbide Cutters, Needlenose. I removed the lanyard ring which I wasn't using anyway, and put a section of hacksaw blade on the far left against the side of the handle, moving the can opener and Philips driver/bit holder over to the right, against the serrated blade. Since a hacksaw blade is so much thinner than the lanyard ring, I had to add a flat washer shim to take up the extra space. I used my grinder to grind down the washer because the diameter was too large. I ground it into a square, since the shape didn't matter. It just had to be small enough to fit. In between the various tools are thin washers with one tooth that goes into a groove just behind the latch that locks the tools open. That's what I dropped and it ended up behind my desk, along with a couple of gun parts I dropped a month or so ago. The hardest part of the whole process was getting the little tooth on all 3 washers all in the slot and keeping them there while I put the pin through them, the shim I made, and all 4 tools. Then I just had to put the screw the other end. It has 4 tiny dimples that I was able to grab hold of with a pair of lock-ring pliers with a 90 degree jaws, and I Loctited it in. The 4 interchangeable jaws can be assembled to the pliers to open or close when you squeeze the handles. I ground a little off the top of the hacksaw blade for the lock to fit in, and more off the bottom of the blade to clear the latch that slides back and forth. I ground a little off the end too, all the way around. It's not an exact science but by plenty of trial and error I got it to fit.

The blade locks open solidly as it should, but when it's closed it doesn't stay in place like all the other tools. I ground off too much between the latch clearance and the end, so it can swing open partway before it presses against the spring-loaded latch. It should angle down like a ramp, instead of being round and small. If I hold the pliers with that handle up, the saw blade can swing down quite a way. But when I squeeze the handles, it rides perfectly across the curved back of the straight knife blade, and doesn't hang up at all. She ain't purty, but she works, and I can get 4 3" blades out of a 12" hacksaw blade. To sum it up, it was a lot of effort to do the mod, but I replaced a useless (to me) lanyard ring with a metal cutting hacksaw blade with 2 3/8" of teeth on it. I added a whole new level of usefulness to my Multi-Pliers at very little cost.

P.S. My best friend has been carrying Leatherman multi-tools for years and uses his all the time. And I mean ALL THE TIME. He has a garage full of tools but will use his Leatherman for anything he can instead of grabbing a better tool. I can't wait to see what he says when he sees this. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1uJeVFOa5I

[alfsauve]

I can see for special purposes how this would be some great mods. 

At work my partner carried a multi-tool everyday.  I only carried one when we were staging events, when time would be of the essence, otherwise I preferred to go back to the tool crib and get the right tools.   We did cheat a little and stage tools in key locations.  A pair of pliers and a lighting wrench on a lanyard in the overhead grid.  At a particular balky screw-driven lift I kept a 12" handle with a 1-1/2" socket to persuade the lift to it's final position, otherwise you'd be stuck in there until somebody came and opened the door from the outside. 

[Big Frank]

I solved the problem of the hacksaw blade flopping out on an angle. Late last night/early this morning I came up with an idea. Maybe one of those thin rubberized magnets would hold it in place. So, this afternoon I decided to find out. I have several advertising magnets fro Ballistic Machinist stuck on the fridge. The front with the design on it doesn't stick at all. I think it's a layer of vinyl. But the back stuck to the blade. I cut a strip about 7/16" wide off one end and glued the front of it into the handle with Amazing Goop. The blade is so far from the side, I added 2 more strips of magnet, and now it works. I used my parallel jaw pliers to give it a good squeeze to work out any excess goop and help it all stick together. After I had all 3 pieces in place I cut the edges off at about a 45 degree angle. You can see the layers and they look kind of like tree rings. One little hiccup is that sometimes the square washer shim I added rotates enough to keep the latch from fully engaging. If it hangs up, I can flick a corner with my fingernail, turning it enough for the latch to slide underneath. If I ground the corners off the washer and made it into an octagon, that would take care of it. But it's such a pain in the @$$ to put everything back together that I won't do it unless it really starts to annoy me. One accidental benefit of the mod is when the blades are closed, I can pull on the latch and it hits the end of the part where I ground some teeth off, popping the blade out a little bit and making it easy to grab onto. I saw a video of a guy who stashes a piece of hacksaw blade behind the lanyard ring or a blade, something in the handle of a multi-tool. Then he has to hang onto it with his pliers to use it. I don't even want to try holding a blade with my pliers to use it. Sometimes I may be too clever for my own good, or not nearly clever enough, but I was just the right amount of clever to come up with this. You can see part of the screw that has 4 small dimples to use some kind of special wrench on. The end of the pin is the same, but you can't turn it. The head of the pin is half in and half outside the handle, and can't turn.