"Sir, I beg your pardon but my knife is indeed awesome": The Mother of all Swiss Army Knives!

They say you shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight, but if you brought the Mother of all Swiss Army Knives along you’d at least have the choice between many different types of knives AND a gun. I've always believed that having a Swiss Army Knife handy is a great bet for your amateur and professional DIY’er alike; it’s just a great multi-tool for getting those little jobs done when you haven’t got a tool kit to hand. I think a .22-caliber revolver might be a little overkill though; although saying that the whole thing might slide easily into that category!

This crazy multi-tool actually pre-dates the Swiss Army Knife we all know and love. It was created around 1880 by a guy called John S. Holler in Germany, and the Swiss Army Knife didn't come into production until 1890. Until then the 19th century gentlemen had to make use of this bad boy; although with 100 functions packed into its no doubt hefty weight they would be hardly short of choice. What, though, exactly makes up this knife that meant it was granted such a lofty title? Well, here are a few things it can help you with.

Want to butter your bread? No problem, the butter knife has you covered.

Want to open a bottle of champagne? Yep, there’s a corkscrew.

Want to saw something? That’s a done deal too.

Want to cut your cigar? Want to use some scissors? Want a pair of shears? Check yourself out in a mirror? Shoot someone (not advised!)? Write something? Tune a piano? You can do all that and more, so what’s not to like? Well, there’s two things I suppose; the fact that it will take up quite a lot of space in your pocket, and will weigh you down like a sack of spuds.

Unfortunately opening your bottle of beer is out of the question, but I'm sure it would have been included if the bottle cap had been invented at the time that John S. Holler decided to whack everything he could think of into one ‘small’ tool. Thankfully you’d still look like the perfect gentlemen with the exquisitely crafted tortoise-shell handle. There are even tiny tools embedded inside the case, just in case you need to do some miniature crafting on your walk down the cobbled streets of a smoky London.

If you want to see the Mother of all Swiss Army Knives up close and personal, head along to the Buffalo Bill Centre of the West in Wyoming, USA. I can’t find one similar that you can actually buy, but this decent selection of multi-tools from Toolbox will do the job just fine.

(Via Neatorama)

The Ultimate Multi Tool: The Cole-Bar Hammer Tool Combines a Hammer and a Crowbar

We love multi tools here at DIY Helpers, so we’re always on the lookout for new and ingenious ways of tackling the question that plagues all the world’s top scientists; how can we combine a bottle opener with a chainsaw?

Ok, mixing alcohol with a chainsaw isn’t the best idea you could have in the world (unless you want to be a quick winner of a Darwin Award) but the thought process that goes into designing multi tools tends to be something along the lines of trying to fit in as many useful tools as possible, although the actual usefulness of so many small tools is debatable. So the best multi tools are usually those that only have a few tools on them, but each tool does its job exceedingly well.

Step in the Cole-Bar Hammer, which is hoping to gather some of the thunderous applause that no doubt ensued and turn it into paying backers for its Kickstarter campaign. It describes itself as the hammer reinvented, and it certainly takes a good shot at living up to that statement. It takes the aforementioned hammer and combines it with the delights of a crowbar, making it unsurprisingly the “only hammer in the world that turns into a full crow-bar”.

Once unfolded the Cole-Bar locks into space so you can use it to pull bits of wood off that old fence you've been meaning to replace, or whatever use you have for a crowbar. It can be separated with a button press so the hammer and claw part can be used independently; plus it can also be used as an angle measurement tool, a ruler, a socket wrench, pliers and a demolition tool. That’s one impressive multi tool!

The project is looking for $100,000 to begin manufacturing and selling the Cole-Bar, and at $87,048 with 41 days still to go it looks like they’re well on their way to reaching the ambitious target. Pledging $65 will put a Cole-Bar in your hands before they go on general sale. Would you buy one if you they were available in your local DIY shop or on websites like Toolbox.co.uk? It’s important to note that you can buy the individual hand tools for cheap prices across the Internet.