A while back I bemoaned the discontinuation of my favorite Leatherman mini tool, the Squirt S4
. While they are still out in the market and easy to find, the real source of my complaint was that Leatherman did NOT update the S4 with the cool features of their new generation. Their new mini tool was the PS4
, which featured mini-pliers for the main tool and a pair of swiss army knife style scissors. Not the good scissors, the crappy SAK scissors. Lame. I don't have much use for mini-pliers, but the scissors on my trusty old S4 were invaluable. But Leatherman, for some moronic reason decided to skip updating the S4. But, not one to give up so easily, I did some thinking and formulated a fiendish plan to resolve this problem.One that would end up leaving me scarred for life.
I postulated that because Leatherman was selling their new generation of mini tools with Torx screws, one could swap a pair of scissors from another Leatherman into the PS4, in place of the pliers. I ordered up a PS4 and a Leatherman Style
from Amazon...the PS4 that came unfortunately had rivets instead of the Torx screws....awesome. Returned that, bought a torx version at Bass Pro.Then, I entered tinkering hell. The PS4 is not so hard to take apart...but it is pretty hard to put back together. The little spring bars that hold everything together have a surprising amount of force behind them, and given the Leatherman's small size, there's not much of a way to get a good grip or good leverage.
I ended up slipping and driving the point of the scissors into my left index finger. Blood everywhere, FAK saved the day. But, determined to finish the project, I bandaged up and finished piecing it back together. Finally, I popped everything together and tightened up the screws. The scissors fit perfectly.
Kind of a crazy project...but I really wanted the damn scissors. I'm loving the black though, looks slick. This has been riding on my keychain for about a month now, and looks pretty good still.
