Well, here I am. Back by popular request –-well, back in response to Alan 13~7's request anyway:
"...Now that several years have passed I would be interested in an update on what you think of your wee knife now...
So, here we are, almost seven years on –-can it really be that long since I bought this tool?–- and, I've got to say, my first impressions were pretty much spot on. So, here, in no particular order are my thoughts, seven years in:
1: As you'd expect, the wooden handles have aged really nicely.
Seven years of mucky, grimy paws and [what with it being my EDC] the same time spent rubbing about against other bits'n'bobs in my pockets have darkened the wood and almost rubbed away the markings. It has, as they say in the antiques trade "acquired a lovely patina"
Compare the above to how it looked when I first got it:
I did have one unfortunate incident about a year and a half ago, when I dropped the Wenger on a hard floor and one of the wooden scales popped off. I epoxied it back on and it's been fine since.
Ironically, that incident reinforced even more my initial thoughts that I had been a bit daft paying almost double the price of a plastic-handled SAK for the Wenger. The scales look great on the Wenger but, when the one fell off and I had it in my hand, it was nothing more than a thin sliver of wood. Certainly ridiculous to think a pair of those would add £30+ to the price of the tool. If you want a SAK with wooden handles, I think you'd be better off buying a plastic-handled one and whittling your own wooden replacements.
2: The Pliers and Spanner really are almost completely worthless.
I was dubious about the Spanner, right from the start but thought the Pliers might prove fairly useful, albeit not a patch on the ones you find on a Leatherman. As it turns out, I've never had much joy using the pliers for anything more demanding than acting as a pair of tweezers. They're far too weak and the tiny handle provides far too little leverage to use them for anything else. As for the Spanner, I don't think I've ever found a use for that, at all.
The disappointing thing is that the Spanner and Pliers are the two thickest tools in the Wenger, taking up a combined 7,5 - 8mm of the depth of the tool. That would have been enough room for Wenger to stick a proper Leatherman type pair of Pliers in there, thus swapping two useless tools for one practical one.
3: Another disappointment has been the Scissors.
These worked well at the start and still cut well [the self-sharpening blade concept seems to work]. However, as time has gone on, both the pivot on the scissor head and the pivot where the scissors join the body of the tool have developed a tiny bit of free-play. It's not a huge amount and you'd probably not even notice it in day-to-day use, where it not for one thing:
As you can see from the pic above, the wee lever that serves to spring the scissor blades back open is now prone to slipping past the side of the Scissor handle it is meant to work against. Thus meaning I almost always have to open the Scissors blades by hand again, rather than them springing open again after a cut.
Again, this looks like poor design from Wenger. If the spring lever had a slightly flattened tip, it would still catch like it's supposed to behind the Scissors handle, even allowing for that wee bit of side to side free-play caused by wear.
4: Worries about the thinness of the blade seem to have been unfounded
Compared to the blades on my Laeathermans [Leathermen?] I initially thought the blade looked a bit weedy. Well, seven years on, it's held up OK. The blade metal has a bit of spring to it and I've not managed to snap it yet. That said, I don't throw much heavy-duty work at it. It spends most of its time sharpening pencils, cutting paper, opening boxes and that kind of thing. It's fairly easy to sharpen –-even for a useless eejit like me!–- and it seems to hold an edge OK although it's obviously just common or garden stainless and not carbon steel or anything fancy like that.
As you can see, it's picked up a few fine scratches over the years but more than a few of them are likely due to my cac-handed sharpening attempts.
5: Everything else pretty much as expected
Of all the other tools, it's a pretty universal case of "Everything's A-OK". The bottle-opener and corkscrew have probably seen the most usage [Draw your own conclusions from that!] and have held up well. The tin-opener is still as sharp as the day I got it and all the screwdriver blades are straight and true with no 'chewing up' of the tips, or anything untoward like that. Ditto nail-file and awl.... and anything else I've forgot to mention!
6: Conclusion
Well, there you go. I realise this "Review Revisited" is a bit redundant now, as I don't think Wenger make the EvoWood any more. But I always enjoy the kind of reviews where people come back and tell you how a product has held up in real-world usage over a few years. So, hopefully, some of you lot are the same.
And, in response to the inevitable question: "Knowing what I know now, would I buy the EvoWood again?" --well, that's a bit tougher.
I was working in a fairly well-paid job when I bought the EvoWood and so could afford to treat myself to the odd "Boy's Toy". Now I'm self-employed and having to watch the pennies a lot more and I think [especially knowing what I know now] that I'd be hard-pressed to justify the purchase price. The wooden scales are lovely looking, but not worth £30+ on top of the price of the Wenger's plastic-handled brethren --and the Spanner and Pliers are shockingly bad.
"...Now that several years have passed I would be interested in an update on what you think of your wee knife now...
So, here we are, almost seven years on –-can it really be that long since I bought this tool?–- and, I've got to say, my first impressions were pretty much spot on. So, here, in no particular order are my thoughts, seven years in:
1: As you'd expect, the wooden handles have aged really nicely.
Seven years of mucky, grimy paws and [what with it being my EDC] the same time spent rubbing about against other bits'n'bobs in my pockets have darkened the wood and almost rubbed away the markings. It has, as they say in the antiques trade "acquired a lovely patina"
Compare the above to how it looked when I first got it:
I did have one unfortunate incident about a year and a half ago, when I dropped the Wenger on a hard floor and one of the wooden scales popped off. I epoxied it back on and it's been fine since.
Ironically, that incident reinforced even more my initial thoughts that I had been a bit daft paying almost double the price of a plastic-handled SAK for the Wenger. The scales look great on the Wenger but, when the one fell off and I had it in my hand, it was nothing more than a thin sliver of wood. Certainly ridiculous to think a pair of those would add £30+ to the price of the tool. If you want a SAK with wooden handles, I think you'd be better off buying a plastic-handled one and whittling your own wooden replacements.
2: The Pliers and Spanner really are almost completely worthless.
I was dubious about the Spanner, right from the start but thought the Pliers might prove fairly useful, albeit not a patch on the ones you find on a Leatherman. As it turns out, I've never had much joy using the pliers for anything more demanding than acting as a pair of tweezers. They're far too weak and the tiny handle provides far too little leverage to use them for anything else. As for the Spanner, I don't think I've ever found a use for that, at all.
The disappointing thing is that the Spanner and Pliers are the two thickest tools in the Wenger, taking up a combined 7,5 - 8mm of the depth of the tool. That would have been enough room for Wenger to stick a proper Leatherman type pair of Pliers in there, thus swapping two useless tools for one practical one.
3: Another disappointment has been the Scissors.
These worked well at the start and still cut well [the self-sharpening blade concept seems to work]. However, as time has gone on, both the pivot on the scissor head and the pivot where the scissors join the body of the tool have developed a tiny bit of free-play. It's not a huge amount and you'd probably not even notice it in day-to-day use, where it not for one thing:
As you can see from the pic above, the wee lever that serves to spring the scissor blades back open is now prone to slipping past the side of the Scissor handle it is meant to work against. Thus meaning I almost always have to open the Scissors blades by hand again, rather than them springing open again after a cut.
Again, this looks like poor design from Wenger. If the spring lever had a slightly flattened tip, it would still catch like it's supposed to behind the Scissors handle, even allowing for that wee bit of side to side free-play caused by wear.
4: Worries about the thinness of the blade seem to have been unfounded
Compared to the blades on my Laeathermans [Leathermen?] I initially thought the blade looked a bit weedy. Well, seven years on, it's held up OK. The blade metal has a bit of spring to it and I've not managed to snap it yet. That said, I don't throw much heavy-duty work at it. It spends most of its time sharpening pencils, cutting paper, opening boxes and that kind of thing. It's fairly easy to sharpen –-even for a useless eejit like me!–- and it seems to hold an edge OK although it's obviously just common or garden stainless and not carbon steel or anything fancy like that.
As you can see, it's picked up a few fine scratches over the years but more than a few of them are likely due to my cac-handed sharpening attempts.
5: Everything else pretty much as expected
Of all the other tools, it's a pretty universal case of "Everything's A-OK". The bottle-opener and corkscrew have probably seen the most usage [Draw your own conclusions from that!] and have held up well. The tin-opener is still as sharp as the day I got it and all the screwdriver blades are straight and true with no 'chewing up' of the tips, or anything untoward like that. Ditto nail-file and awl.... and anything else I've forgot to mention!
6: Conclusion
Well, there you go. I realise this "Review Revisited" is a bit redundant now, as I don't think Wenger make the EvoWood any more. But I always enjoy the kind of reviews where people come back and tell you how a product has held up in real-world usage over a few years. So, hopefully, some of you lot are the same.
And, in response to the inevitable question: "Knowing what I know now, would I buy the EvoWood again?" --well, that's a bit tougher.
I was working in a fairly well-paid job when I bought the EvoWood and so could afford to treat myself to the odd "Boy's Toy". Now I'm self-employed and having to watch the pennies a lot more and I think [especially knowing what I know now] that I'd be hard-pressed to justify the purchase price. The wooden scales are lovely looking, but not worth £30+ on top of the price of the Wenger's plastic-handled brethren --and the Spanner and Pliers are shockingly bad.
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