Following on from a talk at EMFCamp 2024 from Drew Batchelor, I became aware of the Tiny Toolkits Manifesto. In short, it’s about collating a collection of tools in a small toolbag that is easily transportable but which contains all the gubbins you need. The tookit is expected to evolve over time, but I thought “What a good idea” and set about creating my own.
Following Drew’s example, I bought a Large Lihit Lab Book-Type Pen Case from CultPens. I then thought “Right, what do I want inside this thing?” I thought to start with I’d do a soldering kit, but to be honest the soldering equipment I already have comes in a pretty decent package already, so that would’ve been redundant!
Here’s the details of what I’ve settled on so far, starting with an exterior shot of the whole, stuffed kit!
Tucked into the outside pocket are some thin sticky notes or markers:
My first layer is dominated by a fold-up multitool (see below), a pair of (rubbish) scissors and a Swiss Army knife.
Here’s the multitool in more detail. I got this one from Temu – it was cheap and it folded up – ideal for a Tiny Toolkit!
The second layer is a two-side jobby. Here’s the left side:
Inside this layer on the left, we have a chisel-tip Sharpie (because who doesn’t need a Sharpie?) and a pair of side cutters. On the right is a scalpel (mind your fingers!) and a small Stanley adjustable spanner/wrench. Plus, we have two box/craft cutters. As we will discover (and as I discovered this afternoon taking the pictures!), you can never have too many box cutters. (Ahem!)
On the right hand side of the two-part compartment, we can see the following:
In this section on the left is a small screwdriver base and a set of bits for it, plus a socket adapter (the sockets are in the next section). There is also, a wire stripper/cutter and some tweezers of various configurations.
On the right hand side is another spanner/wrench plus another box cutter. There are also two pencils I picked up for free from eSpares and a small brush (suitable for clearing crap out from a keyboard). Oh, there’s also a large pair of tweezers hidden in there.
The third, and final, layer is a bit more stationery than it is tools, but then I always need that kind of thing, so into the Toolktit it all goes.
On the left hand side is a collection of USB cables and a splitter. Plus a load of paper clips of different sizes and colours! Plus it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have a Bulldog clip in there, too. Oh, there’s also a microSD to full sized SD adapter, because I can never find the blummin’ things!
In the right hand side pockets are: another multitool, a small ruler (circuit board), a small pair of tweezers, another box cutter (!), the socket set pieces I mentioned before, an iFixit prise tool (the blue bit of plastic), a small highlighter, a tiny measuring tape and an eraser.
The multitool (which I inherited from my stepson – I know not where he got it from!) is a claw hammer/pair of pliers and inside the handle are some blades and a small pair of scissors. The blades are a bit lethal, so I’m glad they fold away nicely!
As you can see in my Tiny Tookit, there’s a bit of duplication (especially box cutters!), but not much space left. I intend to expand the kit when I can to include an electrical-size screwdriver, some electrical tape and other stuff I can find as we go along!