Gerber Dime Travel Microtool
Your multi-tool is checked in your suitcase, which is missing en route to you on your vacation. Without it, you can’t open a bottle of beer, cut your cuticles, file your nails, pull urchin spines out of your finger or MacGyver a smart way to hang your laundry. But with the Gerber Dime Travel Microtool, you didn’t have to check it in the first place, as it lacks a blade to get the airport security folks all edgy. What you do have: stainless steel pliers and wire cutters, a set of springloaded scissors, medium and small flat drivers, tweezers, a bottle opener that is exposed even when the tool is closed, and a fine and coarse file.
What we liked: The Dime Travel has pretty much everything you’d need in a small multitool, except the blade that would require you pack it in your checked luggage.
Not so much: While everything with the microtool checks out with published TSA requirements for allowed carry-on items, you may be delayed by TSA offi- cers who want to see every last part of the tool to satisfy their curiosity, which is what happened to me.
Vitals: Gerber Dime Travel Microtool, $25 from www.gerber gear.com.