Monday, February 6, 2012

Why I Love My Wave

I painted my office in the last couple of weeks and suddenly the off-white faceplates, switches and outlets looked funny.  My wife bought some that matched the trim color.  It messed up my three-way switch, but I'll live.  I was taking out the old and putting in the new, and I kept getting interrupted.  When I got back to the job the last time, my tools were not with me, but my Leatherman Wave was.  I ended up replacing the last three or four outlets using just that multitool. 

It kind of goes without saying that it probably wasn't a good idea.  The Wave is all stainless steel and a very good conductor of electical current.  If there had been any juice in the circuits I would probably have found out about it the hard way.  Fortunately, I know that those outlets are all on a single breaker, which is part of my emergency generator set-up.  They were dead, and I experienced no shocking surprises.

It is still always a good idea to remove watches, rings, and cellphones when working on circuitry.  Back in the good old pager days, I had a friend who often worked on boilers.  He said every time his pager vibrated while he was working on electrical panels he thought he was shocked. 

A multitool is rarely the best tool for a given job, but it will often serve quite well and save a lot of steps and frustration when doing minor repairs.  Whether it is a SAK, a Leatherman, a Gerber, or a SOG, the multitool is the pocketknife of the 21st Century. 

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