Review: Nuko Tool - ACDT (in GitD)

Following up from the sneak-peak:

When I saw that Norman of Nuko Tools was dallying in glow-in-the-dark materials, I was quick to drop him a line expressing my desires. Whilst the GitD platic is too fragile to be used to mill one of his signature Single NukoTool punchrings or the classic Nuko Heads which he has been milling out of G10.  (and you may remember I got the titanium version for my lovely partner Omega)

He thought it was a great idea too, and suggested he could sandwich a slab of GitD plastic between two titanium slabs of his 2nd Gen Atomic Cranial Divot Tool, which he did, and this beauty is the result.

Seen here looped through my belt-loop, with my paracord ID lanyard hitched.


The simplicity of this deign is evident, it almost passes as a piece of modern art.

Sandwiching these three layers makes the tool considerably thicker than its design originally intended, but this isn't really a drawback, except for those looking for a slimline pocket fob. I like my metal to make its presence known, and this certainly does.

Three hex-screw rivets lay flush with the front surface, and a keyring hole drilled through the piece gives the option of attaching a split ring.

The leading edge of the ACDT features a bottle (or perhaps threat) opening scallop, the flanking edges of which protect the soft GitD middle nicely, and are not so sharp as to catch or dig into clothes or the hand whilst wearing the ACDT.

When gripped through the finger hole, the curves fit the hand nicely, even with an index finger and middle finger ring on. This leaves the "bottle opener" corner as your leading edge, with the squared faces outwards and upwards. Essentially a pistol grip, with any keys or the like, trailing from the bottom of your palm. I found that when striking a target, the slot bit into my index finger a little, but as I'm not planning to make a habit of taking to the bags (or heads) regularly with it, that's no big deal. This is primarily a fob, with a -tertiary- impact tool application for me. That said, I put some nasty dings in a HDD, timber facing, and concrete wall!

I also tried a reversed grip, presenting a much more flat face, which covered more knuckle, but left me with less to grip, and put the bottle opener in my thumb/index webbing.

This wasn't quite as easy to grip, but offers the other advantages of more titanium (and glow) frontwards ..

I found that the extra-thick ACDT has been difficult to feed a split-ring through, and whilst I am still looking, I've so far been happy just to do a loop through the finger hole, the placement of the slot has been just fine for this.

Then there is the glow in the dark side of things. The running-board strip of GitD plastic catches light quite nicely, I have noticed my belt-looped ACDT picks up enough ambient light to be noticeable when I go into a darkened room, and quite positively flares up after exposure to the Australian daytime. For the purposes of this shot, I did hit it with my Jil Lite - JenyX UV torch .

I really love my UV and GitD items, as well as my titanium goodies, and even more so, my wearable impact tools ....

If you have a hankering for some cool pocket bling, be sure to check out NukoTools ...