17 Awesome All-American Inventions for DIYers

LEATHERMAN MULTITOOL: INSPIRED BY A CLUNKER

While traveling abroad, Tim Leatherman carried an old Boy Scout knife. He used it for everything from slicing bread to fixing the unreliable car he was traveling around in. The knife was handy, but he kept wishing he had a pair of pliers, so when he got home he designed his first multi-tool.

Tim cut pieces of cardboard to make a pattern for the prototype, which he built in his garage. He shopped the tool around to prospective manufacturers without success, so he decided to manufacture them himself.

His first sales came through a mail order magazine. He’d hoped to sell 4,000 ‘Pocket Survival Tools’ that first year, but ended up filling 30,000 orders. The Leatherman Tool Group was born.