Pin hole

[znapschatz]

That is why they put a pair of tweezers in the scale. Use them to grab the end of the needle.

O.B.

Push the needle in all the way and the tweezer has nothing to grab. Even if it did, the tweezer is too bendy to get a good grip. You would need a plier for that, which means yet another tool you would have to carry to retrieve an item that you may need once a decade, more or less. Is this a nutty thread, or what?

BTW, for years I have stuck safety pins here or there out of sight in my jackets or street clothes in case of need, and sometimes wear a pinned on button (Go Bucks) that can do the job. Those do come in handy sometimes.

 

[Old Biker]

Push the needle in all the way and the tweezer has nothing to grab. Even if it did, the tweezer is too bendy to get a good grip. You would need a plier for that, which means yet another tool you would have to carry to retrieve an item that you may need once a decade, more or less. Is this a nutty thread, or what?

BTW, for years I have stuck safety pins here or there out of sight in my jackets or street clothes in case of need, and sometimes wear a pinned on button (Go Bucks) that can do the job. Those do come in handy sometimes.

So don't push the needle in all the way. Leave about 1/16 inch of the eye hole sticking out. I find a straight pin to dull, to do a good job digging out slivers, so I have had a needle in my Swiss Champ, for decades. I have always used the tweezers to retrieve it. Its about the only thing I have found the tweezers useful for. For most other tweezers jobs the pliers work better.

O.B.

 

[yablanowitz]

Just an observation. I've bought a bunch of used SAKs on eBay lately, and less than 10% of the ones that had pin holes came with pins in them. That makes me think the average SAK owner either doesn't know or doesn't care about the knife having storage for a straight pin, which would certainly not encourage Victorinox to install them. Second observation, retention of the straight pin seems to be less than stellar on most of the scales I've tried them in. Without the head of the pin hitting the corkscrew I suspect I'd have ended up with a pin loose in my pocket a few times, so no needle in there for me. It wouldn't be a problem on the Tinker, but I can also see the Phillips pushing the needle in too deep to be retrieved readily.