The Gerber Center-Drive Multitool has been put to the test on some tough jobs both onboard and on land. Here's what Tech Editor, Fox Morgan has to say about it.
Gerber Center-Drive Multitool Tested & Reviewed
Gerber Center-Drive
Best all-round multitool
Specifications: Make: Gerber | Model: Centre-Drive / Center-Drive | Weight: 265g | Blade length: 74mm | Closed length: 116mm | Locking blade: Yes | Features: 16 | Singlehanded use: Yes
The Gerber Center-Drive multitool from Gerber has something for every occasion.
If you’re a sailor or a boater then this is seriously worth a look as a handy tool to keep about your person when onboard.
Spring-loaded needle nose pliers that slide out of the multitool with a single handed action or a deft flick of the wrist allow fine control and accuracy with their fine tips. Not quite as powerful as a standard pair of pliers these are perhaps more useful on a boat for pulling bits of line that have got lost inside a sheave or for holding on to things while you solder or repair with the other hand.
I’ve used these up a mast and balanced precariously on the end of a boom fishing out a bit of trapped reef line.
Tucked near the pivot of those pliers is a rotatable/replaceable carbide wire cutter.
The center drive arm rotates to allow a more natural and direct force behind screws. Rather usefully it takes standard sized bits too and has room on board for one other bit for storage.
Tucked away inside there’s a pry bar, nail puller and awl. So levering off that lid from the tin of paint or jabbing a hole in an oil tin for pouring was never so easy.
In the rotate out tools, there’s a fine and coarse sided file, a serrated blade which makes particularly short work of cutting warps and lines and a smooth toughened blade which is good for any job you like that involves slicing things up. That smooth toughened blade is easy to sharpen and maintain. Though it didn’t take very long at all to become stained when I inadvertently got salt water on it. Be sure to give it a rinse off with fresh and a spray of WD40 or other basic water repellent.
The tool feels weighty in the hand, not excessively so, but more reassuringly weighty. The tools are all robust and inspire confidence to tackle a wide array of jobs that lesser multitools would buckle in the face of.
Though these do have a premium price, they are worth it.