Last year Brian Davis ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to launch Fix It Sticks. The original Fix It Sticks were (and still are) a couple of light, strong hunks of aluminum with steel bits on each end and a hole in the middle that lets the two sticks fit together to form a T-wrench. My original set of Fix It Sticks is still going strong, but last week I got my hands on Brian's latest version of Fix It Sticks and he's made a good thing even better.
First, the bad news for you weight weenies out there, the new Fix It Sticks are a bit heavier than the old ones. The new sticks have nickel-plated steel bodies and magnets that securely hold various interchangeable bits in place. The original Fix It Sticks came in various configurations (say 3, 4, and 5 mm Allen heads and a Phillips screw head or 4, 5, 6 mm Allen and a T-25 Torx head), you had to make your choice at the time of purchase and that was the set of tools you had.
The new Fix It Sticks come with two sticks and eight bits (2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6 mm Allens, a PH2 Phillips head, and a T-25 Torx. The sticks and the bits all fit together in a handy rubber pouch made from a bit of recycled bike inner tube. The magnets work really well at holding the bits in place. It takes a very strong tug to get them out, and they also keep the tool solidly in the T configuration for use.
If you need a bit that isn't included with the Fix It Sticks any steel bit with a standard hex base will fit. You can find a wide range of these bits at any decent hardware store.
The Fix It Sticks are made in the USA and you can find out more at their website at:
http://www.fixitsticks.com/
The Kickstarter for their new tools, including a shop T-wrench that I haven't talked about here, is at:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fixitsticks/a-re-imagined-replaceable-wrench
I've always been a guy who travels with tools and I appreciate people and tools that do their job well. Brian Davis is one of those guys and his Fix It Sticks are a good tools that are now even better.
BTW, full disclosure here, Brian did send me the Fix It Sticks for free, but I gotta tell you, I get lots of freebies that I don't rave about. These things work well. And oh yeah, my pal Hughie said he thought the recycled inner tube pouch was "cheesy". I think it's cool!
Keep 'em rolling,
Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah WA USA
I've been ordering a few books from hither and yon and came home the other day to see two packages on the counter. One was Paul Fournel's excellent "Need for the Bike." The other, well, what book could it be? No book at all, but unexpectedly, the new Fix It Sticks. The magnets, the replaceable bits, the torque, the bit of inner tube it comes wrapped in--somebody should write a book about this, with replaceable pages, of course.
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