A short walkthrough on the use of Grims cordage making tools, for additional help you might check out our assembly video which will cover changing your spacers for different thicknesses of Cordage.
Grim Workshop, Received my 3 piece kit today with Expansion kit and extra blades from kickstarter about an hour ago. . Watched your video. Assembled all 3 and played with each. Very happy. Works as advertised. Rangers.... Lead the Way!
I am a backer of the micro tool. Love the size and simplicity of it. Definitely on my EDC keychain. One thing I will mention is, at least for the micro tool, make sure you really tighten the nut and bolt that is inserted into the middle of the blade. If it isn't very tight and as you are holding the tool on the bottle, the resistance of the plastic will force the blade to rotate and the bottom end of the blade will protrude out the cover and dig into your finger. I thought I had it tight, but after 10-20ft of cordage, I felt the blade begin to stick out beyond the lower cover. I actually assembled the blade backwards (pause the video at the 1:00 mark in the video to see how how he assembled it). You'd think you would want to feed the edge of the bottle against the sharp edge of the blade from the left side of the tool (as pictured at 1:00) so that the top, blunt edge of the blade will be pushed against the lower left nylon washer in the top cover effectively preventing any blade rotation. How it is assembled in the video will, again if not tightly bolted down, eventually rotate the blade's bottom edge out from the lower cover and possibly into your thumb (again as shown in the video his thumb will be vulnerable) I did watch the assembly video, but that is for the card and not the micro so that didn't help me much. A design change could be that you could add another bolt on the bottom cover just behind the blade's rotation path to prevent it from turning under pressure (just like the top washers would do if the blade were flipped 180 degrees). Still, great tool. Works as designed. Thanks for the great idea to make extremely cheap, but very strong cordage.
Thank you. This definitely helped... for me, the issue was pushing the cutter not pulling bottle. I couldn't get a good start for 2 days..lol Also, I think I will attach mine to a ... something.. lol .. I have grip issues. Think attaching it, using the end holes...will help my consistency... Thank you again.
I just my dog tag version in & assembled. I'm all the time in the woods or on the water alone & you never know when & where things could go wrong. The best portable survival essentials I've found by far!
You should mention and start using trauma sheers since that’s what we all have on us. Would make for a good selling point. At first after Canadian preppers vid I thought these looked crappy. After a few more I realize they are super easy. Let the bottle feed itself. But yes work out a good way to use the sheers. Will help the people that automatically thing they now need to pack heavy scissors to use this. Dig it!
If you have something to let the bottle spin on, like a tree branch, broom or a coat rack arm, would that help with keeping the bottle and cutter 90° to each other? Also, i like it that you show that the cordage breaks sometimes, real world situation.Thanks for sharing.
*kickstarter superbacker 5,000 something or other(ish) here...really looking forward to adding this micro cordage thingy to my EDC kit...have looked at your main sight and will be adding many other things from your survival offerings*
*have had so much fun making cordage with my micro-tool so far...defiantly one of the most useful keychain EDC items i've obtained so far...had to polish the edges just a bit with a needle file and sand paper to get rid of the edges...more of a cosmetic issue, that in no way effected the functionality of the tool. one question, any thoughts of producing these in brass? using black spacers? think they would look really cool especially after a nice patina formed over them...commented previously about using titanium which would be awesome but obviously more expensive...either way will probably obtain a few more of these as gifts for friends and family before long*
That's awesome!!! If you ever have a cool project you use it for be sure to send pics our way!! We've considered other metals, but the only problem with a tool like this would be corrosion being an issue. We considered titanium though, and maybe some different coating options. We're also looking into spacer coloring options.
Great question...we did measure that when we first made the tool..I'm not sure where I have that data. I i know we've seen 30+ pounds on a single strand, and more when you twist multiple strands together. We've towed ATVs, trucks, even tractors with a single two liter bottle. If you go to www.grimworkshop.com and watch the video on the cordage tools page you can see some more examples of the strength of the material.
Does the direction of the blade (left or right) matter because of right handedness? The tool appears mostly symmetrical, so I'm confused why it matters (this is also coming from my struggle to get it to work pointing left, right, up, or down lol)
Yes, the direction does matter, if the sharp side of the blade isn't facing the post like in the assembly video it will get jammed. Likewise if the blade is not flat side up, it will usually just give you a few inches of material before cutting off. We just uploaded some new instruction videos that you can look at to verify everything. If it's all put together the way we have it in the videos it will work. If you keep having trouble email us at support@grimworkshop.com and I'll help get things working right 😁
You know guys and girls, I'm just underwhelmed by mine. There were sharp edges on the parts, and I'm sure it was stated, but I was surprised that I had to assemble it. Finally, it just didn't work very well. The blade seems super dull and I couldn't get even a foot out of mine without it cutting super wide and jamming inside the tool. I'm kind of bummed I spent my money on this.
You should check your blade placement if it's doing that, it sounds like you have it facing the wrong way. We've added videos on this channel of how to put each type together that could help with that, because if it's facing the wrong way, the plastic jams inside the tool.
