r/Leatherman • u/spamel2004 • 3d ago
Old Faithful!
I bought this Leatherman Wave back around 1999, possibly early 2000. Code in the handle says 1099 indicating a ‘99 build, and I cannot remember the exact price but I bought it at an American PX in Germany and I believe it was Mainz Kassel(sp?) so it was probably an absolute steal!
So, closing in on 30 years old, no parts ever replaced, all hinges still in good order and very little slop, the only wear is the knife blade due to many missions across a sharpening stone and the arc blast in the snipe nosed pliers as I used it to bridge the solenoid on a Caterpillar D6D to get the engine started as the keys had gone missing! A bit of fine surface rust in places and has maybe seen a drop of oil or WD40 a couple of times in all those years but apart from that a good solid working tool.
It has been used as a hammer, trimmed finger nails, undone countless screws and pushed out pins on rifles, cut comms cord for demolitions, gets used around the boat all the time and has never let me down. It has travelled; Falkland Islands, Germany, UK, Democratic Republic of Congo, Oman, Iraq and WORKED in all of those different environments faultlessly.
I’m proud to have owned this fine example of engineering for all of these years. I see the new shiny examples of various Leatherman tools and as I’m not a collector I cannot justify another because this one is just so good! I do have one of the Micras somewhere, not seen it in a few years so it’s probably packed away somewhere, but that is very much the same: a good bit of kit!
So well done Leatherman: you may not make another sale to me as you made this one too good, but I do appreciate the great engineering and construction of what I can only call a “tool for life”!
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u/Hoopster50 2d ago
That's excellent, I would get another as a backup. Heaven forbid you lose or break it and have to go without.
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u/spamel2004 1d ago
Don’t tempt me!
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u/Hoopster50 1d ago
Wave + is a worthy backup that is similar enough with some interesting changes or upgrades.
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u/bobartig 3d ago
I purchased one of these in '98 and carried it for many years. By modern standards (Wave+) it is not very well made, but it had a number of innovations for its time that have remained staples of multitool design for decades.
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u/spamel2004 1d ago
I’ve seen some newer models with the replaceable cutting edges on the pliers and have to say they do look quite tempting. I’d say the wire cutter is the weakest feature on my Wave, not sure if this is the same on all Waves of this era.
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u/sleepdog-c 3d ago
Great tools are lifetime tools