Owned, carried, then reviewed. In that order.
Pocket knives and flashlights I own and carry, plus the tools I use at home. I’m left-handed, so every knife here gets checked in my left hand, including the ten that fail. When I haven’t owned something, I say so and link the people who measured it.
Browse by category
Pocket Knives and Utility Knives
Thirty-three knives I own, in the order I would tell you to buy them, with steels, locks, time in my rotation, and which ones are discontinued.
EDC Flashlights
What the meter says versus what the box says: lumen claims, CRI, battery formats, and the nine lights I own.
Stuck, Rusted, and Stripped Fasteners
The escalation ladder from penetrating oil to welding a nut on, which guide to read for your bolt, and how to put it back to spec.
Workshop Consumables
Penetrating oil, threadlocker, CA glue, silicone spray, pivot oil: what the shelf needs, and which cans are on mine.
Chargers and Power Banks
Claimed watts versus delivered watts: how to read a charger spec, why some capacity claims are impossible, and what I own.
Guides
Best Penetrating Oil for Rusted Bolts
Six independent tests, five different winners, one famous product that finished dead last on camera while the forums crown it king. What frees a seized bolt. On my own shelf: WD-40. Anything that makes noise gets a squirt.
How to Remove a Stripped Bolt
"Stripped bolt" describes four different failures, and the fix for one wastes your afternoon on another. Diagnose it first, then the escalation ladder professional mechanics follow, including the tool they tell you not to reach for. My latest was a pool pump screw that shrugged off WD-40 and larger and larger screwdrivers until I broke it out and started over with plumber’s tape.
Best CA Glue for Woodworking
The internet's most-cited glue tester never put super glue on wood. The one large load-cell study that did found thicker CA is stronger, and the accelerator doesn't help — both the opposite of what the bottle implies.
Knife Steel, Rated by a Metallurgist and Carried by Me
Larrin Thomas’s ratings for 61 steels on one interactive chart, with the twelve steels in my drawer ringed and linked to the knives that carry them. No dot is best; every dot is a trade.
Left-handed pocket knives, tested by a lefty
Thirty-three knives I own, each checked left-handed on the whole knife: clip, opener and lock, on the knife itself, not the spec sheet. Thirteen work the same in either hand, ten are Lefty OK with a slight right-hand edge, and ten favor the right, plus the spec-sheet wording that tells you which is which. A knife I reach for often fails this page: its clip only fits the right side, so mine rides with no clip at all.
Small pocket knives: why I keep going back to the little ones
16 of my 33 knives have a blade under 2.5 inches, and the Spyderco McBee, built for right hands at the clip and the lock, is the one I have not managed to give up. When a small knife wins, and when I want more blade.
Which knife brands make true left-handed knives
A true left-hand version is the mirror image: lock, clip and opener on the other side. Only 6 of 26 brands sell one today, and 5 more list one that is sold out.
Knife warranties and free sharpening: 22 brands compared
Which brands sharpen your knife for free, who pays the postage on a warranty claim, and whose warranty still covers you if you bought the knife used. Read from each brand’s own pages.
Who owns which knife brands
Kai owns Kershaw and Zero Tolerance, GSM Outdoors owns Cold Steel and SOG, and Fiskars owns Gerber. The family tree for 34 knife brands, each one checked at the source.
The 18 knife YouTubers I actually watch
Metal Complex, Blade HQ, KnifeCenter and fifteen more I’ve watched a bunch of videos from, in order of subscribers, with one video to start with on each.
What 10 knife YouTubers I watch actually carry
The Kizer Drop Bear Zero is the one knife three of them carry; I own the original Drop Bear, not the Zero. Each carry comes from the creator’s own video, linked to the moment they say it.
Knife shows through 2027: dates, cities and tickets
Dates, venues and ticket links from each organizer’s own site, BLADE Show in Atlanta included. I have never been to BLADE Show or SHOT Show. I intend to go.
The flashlight reviewers who measure, and what they measure
Nine testers who publish their own lumen, runtime, throw or color readings, ZeroAir and 1Lumen among them, ranked by archive size and subscribers, and how they measure.
Bolt-action pens for EDC: 11 pens from 10 makers
Grouped by the refill they take, Pilot G2 or Parker-style, with each maker’s length and weight. Researched, not owned: I do not own any bolt pens from the big designers, just Temu ones.
Owned-gear reviews
One product per page, all of it gear I own. Specs checked against the maker’s sheet, the independent tests linked, and the downsides in the same paragraph as the upsides.
Loctite Threadlocker Blue 242 Review
Medium-strength blue threadlocker: sets in about 10 minutes, cures in 24 hours, and comes loose again with hand tools. I used it on a pocket knife screw I did not want working loose, and on my magnet-fishing magnet. Getting it loose again took hands, a screwdriver and some elbow grease. That is the product doing its job. Plated fasteners need a primer; that gap is what 243 closes.
WD-40 Specialist Silicone Lubricant Review
A silicone spray that dries to a clear film, rated for -100°F to 500°F. I bought it to quiet my windshield wipers. The squeak came back in a few weeks. The side effect did not: at 55 mph and up, raindrops jump off the windshield, and that lasted a good few months.
WUBEN X4 EDC Flashlight Review
A flat 18650 light with USB-C charging. The box says 1,500 lumens and 205 meters of throw. 1Lumen’s meter read 1,460 at turn-on, about 470 once it settled, and 178 meters. Low CRI is the real weakness.
Kershaw Knife Oil Review
The oil Kershaw recommends for its own folders, and Knife Informer’s Best Budget pick. A drop in a new knife and it feels buttery smooth again; the wide plastic nose means you have to get creative to land it. I would still pick KPL over it, based on what other enthusiasts say.
Kizer Sheepdog C01C Mini (S35VN, Raffir) Review
Two years in my rotation with a knife Kizer no longer makes: a 2.63-inch S35VN mini-cleaver on bearings, and what the Sheepdog line traded away when it replaced it. Unbalanced toward the blade, sticks a little on a flick at times, and still hard to put down at a desk.
Kizer Drop Bear Clutch Lock EDC Knife (Nitro-V, V3619A15) Review
A 2.97-inch Nitro-V blade at 60-61 HRC, an adjustable Clutch Lock crossbar a lefty can work with either hand, and 3.28 ounces in the pocket. In my rotation since January 2026: butter smooth, zero wiggle room, addictively fidgety. It did not replace anything permanently, but it earned its way in.
SK 6-Inch High-Leverage Diagonal Cutting Pliers (SK02150) Review
Laser-hardened edges and a hot-riveted high-carbon joint, from SK’s post-2021 import line, not the USA-forged 15016 series the name was built on. The two lines share a logo, not a factory.
BIBURY Mini Keychain Multitool Scissors (BI2062B, 9-in-1) Review
Strong spring-loaded shears plus eight smaller tools, folded into 3.07 inches. At 150 grams with no locking tools, it is a pocket-or-bag tool, not a keychain one.
AOHI Youth 140W GaN+ USB-C Charger (3-Port, PD 3.1) Review
One of the few GaN bricks with a real PD 3.1 28V/5A port, though only one of its three ports delivers the full 140W. I use it daily for laptop, tablet and phone. The downside: plug in something new and it restarts my phone stand, whose clock then lights up the bedroom in the middle of the night. Some people look at it like a feature. In this case, it’s kind of a bug.
Comparisons and gift guides
Kizer Drop Bear vs Sheepdog Mini
Two Kizers I own, one in my rotation since January 2026 and one since September 2024: blade shapes, locks, steels, and which one I reach for.
PICHI G9 Brass vs Aluminum
The same utility knife in two metals, and I own both: weight, patina, feel, and which one to buy. I bought the aluminum to match my wallet and the brass to stop worrying about scratches. The brass goes through boxes like a laser beam. The green mostly stays home now.
Gifts for Mechanics and Wrenchers
What someone who turns bolts would want, owned gear first, grouped by the person, never by price.
EDC Gifts
Pocket knives, lights, chargers, and keychain tools that get carried every day, owned gear first.
Reader carries and deals
Show me what is in your pocket
One photo, the list of what is in it, your name on it. Each carry goes up as its own page after I have looked at it; no affiliate links in any of them.
Codes and offers that are live right now
Discount codes for CIVIVI, Kizer and WE Knife, pulled from the brands’ own feeds and newsletters, each with an end date. Expired codes drop off on their own.
New test results, by email
One email when a new guide or measured test lands. No spam, never sold, unsubscribe anytime.