The tool knife wins in the Best Impulse Buy category this week. Tool geeks love to geek out and collect unusual tools that their friends don’t have. This knife definitely qualifies. Only one thing makes this knife interesting: the hand tools cut in relief into the brass handles.

Otherwise, you have a standard multibladed pen knife. Closed, the knife measures 3-3/8″ long and 3/16″ thick. It features a 2″ drop point blade and a bottle opener tool on the other end. We’d like to get it as a gift, but we can’t picture any Toolmonger blowing $30 on it themselves.

Tool Knife [Garrett Wade]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

When you’re trying to outrun the retched remains of humanity on your way to Bartertown you just can’t pack that much gear. The ATAX multi-purpose survival axe will likely give you the most bang for your survival buck. With this little wonder you can cut down a tree, shoot an arrow at a deer, skin that deer, tell time, and estimate distance, as well as single-handedly rebuild a just and noble human civilization.*

Badass survivalist Ron Wood, whose badassedness rivals that of even Chuck Norris himself, designed the ATAX. You can either use it as a knife or lash it to a stick and use it like an axe. The high-carbon steel main blade measures 4-1/2″ with the tool’s overall length coming in at 5-1/2″.

With the various metrics laser-etched on the blade, you can tell time (like with a sundial), measure angles, and judge distances. With some slingshot tubing, you can turn the ATAX into an arrow launcher for hunting game. The micarta handle conceals a small storage area for various survival items like matches and twine and MacGyver brand paper clips.

If you can’t remember all the uses, the ATAX actually comes with an instructional DVD to show you how to use it. As Mad Max can tell you, survival doesn’t come cheap — the ATAX runs about $150 to $200.

ATAX [Survival.com]
ATAX on sale [OsoGrandeKnives.com]
ATAX on sale [Hoods Woods]

*Your results may vary.

If you want to introduce a youngster to the joys of whittling, Smoky Mountain Woodcarvers offers a starter kit that makes it easy. Along with a 3-1/4″ Victorinox pocket knife and a 60-page book, the kit includes two basswood practice blocks, one of which is already marked up for carving the ball-in-cage.

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To make cutting flexible duct easier, Malco makes one wicked looking cross between an insulation knife and a pair of wire snippers. Simply grab the non-slip vinyl handles and use the double-edged stainless steel blade to easily slice through the insulation. Finish the cut by snipping the inner rib coil with the compound action wire cutters.

At $30 or so, this might not be for just anybody’s toolbox, but if you’re installing an HVAC system this tool could save you some time. Just be careful carrying this bad boy in your tool pouch.

Flex Duct Cutter [Malco]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

After a hard day slogging through the woods, you may want to swap your normal pocket knife for the French Army Bivouac Knife. Standard issue in the French Infantry, this knife unfolds to give you everything needed to eat your hard-earned meal.

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While the folding draw knife was “new, novel, and selling rapidly” in the 1880s, draw knives have aided woodworkers since Noah noticed the clouds rolling in. Gripping both handles, the woodworker pulls the draw knife toward him (or pushes away, despite the name), peeling bark and wood from logs and leaving a unique hand-made look.

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The bikahtagenigan, or crooked knife, was an essential tool used by Native Americans in creating birchbark canoes, paddles and poles, brown ash split baskets, snowshoes, and clubs. The crooked knife is a drawknife made with a bent handle; the carver grasps the knife fingers-up with the blade facing him and pulls it toward himself, slicing and shaving the wood to form smooth surfaces.

Native Americans made the earliest crooked knives in the American Northeast and Atlantic Canada from beaver or porcupine incisors hafted into a wooden handle. Contact with French, English, and Scandinavian settlers brought the technology of metal blades to the Maine Indians by the early 1700s. The knives were widely made and used until around 1930, when modern manufactured goods replaced many items that were traditionally carved.

Crooked knife handles are often elaborately designed, displaying items such as the carved heads of animals, horse hooves, hands with wedding rings, snake bodies, inlaid photographs, women’s legs, and traditional deer and dove images seen in beadwork of the Iroquois. The knife pictured above shows a playing card motif.

Today, Maine Indian basketmakers and canoe builders still create and use crooked knives, and you can find a number of knives online at antique woodworking sites. And if you’ve used one before, upload your pictures — we’d love to see this traditional tool in action.

Crooked Knife Online Exhibit [Hudson Museum]

If I wrote a slasher B-movie, my villain would definitely wield a bill hook. This is one mean looking tool, as well as a tried and true pruning knife. The design extends back hundreds of years as both weapon and tool — similar designs are found in medieval weaponry. If it can slice through medieval armies, it’ll make quick work of the untamed woods out back.

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Knife-sharpening confuses the hell out of me — there are so many old wives tales, half-truths, and rules of thumb offering contradictory advice on how to do it.  Luckily the Lansky Knife Sharpening System takes the guesswork out of putting a sharp, safe edge on a blade.

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Cheap-ass Dealmongers, start your engines! Our friend Mike from ReadyMade sent in this “Bargin of the Month” promotion from True Value Hardware. If you’re willing to suffer through a mail-in rebate — and they don’t run out of stock — you can snag the following tools for free:

• a 25-foot Stanley LeverLock Tape measure ($5)
• an Irwin ProTouch retractable Utility knife ($7)
• and a 77-piece Black & Decker drill and screwdriver accessory set ($3)

These promotions are available in-store only so the cost to you is your time and a stamp — and some serious patience.

Bargin of the Month [True Value]
25-Foot LeverLock Tape Measure [Stanley]
ProTouch Utility Knife [Irwin]
77-Piece Drill and Screwdriver Accessory set [Black & Decker]

Sometimes a traditional knife just isn’t the right tool for the job. For example, I’ve broken knives while trying to use them as pry bars, and many workplaces limit the kinds of pocket knives you can carry or ban them entirely. Wilson Tactical’s “Cop Tool” is a stout multipurpose blade meant for police and rescue personal — that also happens to be perfect for anyone seeking a tough not-a-knife tool.

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Everybody hates clamshell packaging, and with the holiday season fast approaching we’re going to see a lot of it shortly. Many companies market tools make opening this viscious packaging easier, but Zibra’s Open It! has me intrigued.

The Open it! is more diagonal cutter than scissors, delivering the leverage to cut through those nasty clamshell packages — and to snip strapping, too. Built in to one of its handles is a retractable utility knife for cutting boxes and slicing through DVD packaging. And for opening battery compartments and minor assembly, the other handle hides a built in screwdriver with interchangeable Phillips and slotted heads.

The Open It! sells for about $12 at Amazon, Target, Walgreens, and other stores, so it’s a tempting buy right now. But is this $12 tool the solution to my clamshell woes, or is this a piece of junk that belongs only in As Seen On TV store?

More specifically, have you tried one? And if it sucks, can you recommend a good one? Let us know in comments.

Open It! [Manufacturer]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s this?]

Since I can remember, I’ve watched my father slice up Thanksgiving turkey with a long, sharp blade and serve the rest of the family like we lived in a Norman Rockwell painting. (We didn’t.) So when my dad took me aside this year and showed me his new tool for carving up the bird — and it had a cord – I was shocked.

Though I’m sure the electric meat carver is a perfectly good tool (for cutting automotive seat foam) I just can’t get over the negative idea of a small, humming recip saw at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Something about this corded blade wounds my sense of traditional holiday spirit even more than the thought of my brother eating all the cranberry sauce before I get any.

Then I think of how much faster that thing can rip off hunks of meat for us to wolf down (with stuffing and homemade rolls) and it’s a complete toss up. What do you think? Let us know in comments.

Electric Carving Knife [Cuisinart]
Street Pricing [Google Product Search]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Our friends over at Case checked in with us today to let us know they put out a few cool Halloween-themed knives this season. The one pictured above is a Small Saddlehorn pattern with an orange bone handle. Instead of the standard Case shield, the knife features a “spooky Halloween scene” on the handle. Its skinner blade is partially-serrated and the knife ships in the pictured gift tin. Production of this model is limited to 350 units, which MSRP for $120. Sadly, Case says they’re likely already sold.

But if you’d still like some Halloween joy in your knife, you’re not completely out of luck. Case tells us they’re also producing a Mini-Trapper pattern in orange bone with similar engraving and a partially-serrated clip blade that’s cheaper — MSRP is $94 — and probably still available as it was produced in larger numbers.

If you’d like one, you’ll find ‘em at your local Case dealer.

Check out Amazon’s sweet 10% off knives and multitools sale. A few gift-worthy items include the Gerber Paraframe set, Leatherman Micra and Squirt tools, and SOG’s combo-blade Flash, all also eligible for the 4-for-3 sale.

You can’t really go wrong with this kind of selection in tools. They are all solid toolbelt options for on the jobsite or around the house.

Gerber Paraframe Set Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Leatherman Micra Amazon [What’s This?]
Leatherman Squirt Amazon [What’s This?]
SOG Flash Amazon [What’s This?]

Here’s a deal for all you Gerber knife fans: over at Amazon they’re offering this Gerber 22-47188 Paraframe II and Mini-Paraframe lockback knife set for $25 — with free shipping. The set includes the Paraframe II (3-1/2″ blade) and Mini-Paraframe (2-1/4″ blade), both equipped for single-handed opening. Both knives have stainless-steel handles, and are lightweight at 4.1 ounces and 1.4 ounces, respectively, with a 1-year limited warranty.

Paraframe [Gerber]
Via Amazon [What’s this?]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Leatherman’s new Skeletool is a stripped down, lightweight (five ounces!) multi-tool with all the tools you expect from a Leatherman: a screwdriver, a knife, and pliers.  And unlike with previous Leathermans, the knife and the bottle opener (the hook at the back) are accessible without opening the tool.  Oh yeah — it also looks bad ass.

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