Bare Tye Multitool

Tye Forde works for Armex in Birmingham and makes tongue in cheek videos, showing how to use various Armex products in the wilds. In these videos, he’s ‘Bare Tye’, ‘The Naked Outdoorsman’ (I’ve not seen him naked yet though and long may this continue!) and it’s clear he doesn’t take himself too seriously. To capitalise on the success of this branding, Armex have recently launched the stainless steel Bare Tye Multitool and it’s one serious bit of kit!

The style is fairly conventional, in that the outer handles are pulled apart and opened at the front to reveal the spring-loaded pliers. The plier head has a gripping surface at the front, with a curved centre section and hardened steel inserts incorporating a wire cutter and stripper at the pivot end. The spring really helps when using the pliers and I wish more multitools had this feature.

The ‘burnt bronze’ anodised alloy grip scales have lightening cut-outs, which also add extra grip and the inner tools are accessed via thumbnail grooves; each side holds four tools. The tools include a 2 1/2-inch razor sharp knife, a combined bottle opener/can opener, a double-sided metal file, a fish scaler and hook disgorger, three different sizes of flat screwdriver, a Phillips screwdriver and a multi-use sharp point. You should be able to carry out most tasks with this product.

All of the tools are well made and function as you would expect. They are held securely in the open position by the black sprung clip and are easy to stow away again after use. The overall feel of this tool is very good indeed and is well up to any task you could throw at it. I used it for various jobs in the garden and garage recently and couldn’t fault it; although I was tempted to take a small, round file to the fish scaler and turn it into a mini saw! I don’t go fishing, so it would be more useful to me personally. The tool comes with a black nylon belt pouch by the way.

If this item had come from one of the multitool market leaders, I would have been very impressed but would also have expected to have paid serious money for it. The amazing thing though, is that The Bare Tye Multitool costs less than £40! This really is a bargain and I can see it being very popular, as it has all of the attributes of its more costly rivals at a fraction of the cost. Ronnie Sunshines are currently selling this multitool for £34.95.