The tools of the trade. The actual tools.

Like a lot of guitar players, I have enough wood and steel to fill a closet.  So it can get pretty expensive to carry them in to a real live luthier every time one needs a setup or repair.  So I try to do a lot of the work myself.   Over the years I've accumulated a bag full of tools to use when working on a guitar.  However, I've never had anything gig bag sized that I could drop into a pocket and have that cover any setting up I want to do on the fly.

So lately I've been seeing some of the guitar multi tools, and figured I'd give them a test drive.  I noticed that there seem to be 4 main ones:  Gibson, Ibanez, CruzTools, and D'Addario.  They were all priced between $15 and $20.  The Gibson, the D'Addario, and the old CruzTools options all looked like they were made by the same company and were mostly the same.  I read somewhere that the Ibanez version was included with their premium guitars, so I figured that one may be specific to Ibanez gutiars (which I don't have any).  Looking at pics, whether it is or not, it also looks bigger and bulkier than the others.  The old CruzTools and the D'Addario tool neither had a 5/16" socket on it.   So I discounted those and didn't get them.  The new CruzTools version and the Gibson did.  So those were the two that I picked up to try out.  Here are my thoughts on them.

The Gibson Multi Tool

I recently heard one of the YouTube personalities I follow mention that they have the Gibson version and think that it's the best guitar tool out there.  It's got the 5/16" socket, a slotted screwdriver, a #1 and #2 Phillips screwdriver, 7 allen/hex wrenches (which I suspect are a mix of standard and metric), and something described as a lever that is laser engraved with marks at 3/64" and 5/64" for measuring string height.  

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The CruzTools Multi Tool

The first "guitar tools" that I ever bought was a set by CruzTools, that I use all the time.  I noticed that the new version of the CruzTools option had the 5/16" socket, so I got it as well.  It has the same 2 Phillips screwdrivers, a slotted screwdriver (just a touch smaller than on the Gibson tool), 9 allen/hex wrenches (that are engraved with their size), and a standard/metric ruler for setting string height.  It also has the tools, particularly the sizes of the allen/hex wrenches on the side of the tool.

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As far as using them, they work about the same.  They're both multitools that seem to do the trick.  Both have, pretty much, the same tools on them.  However, I think I prefer the one made by CruzTools for 2 reasons in particular.  First, it has the sizes of the allen/hex wrenches on the wrenches so you know which one you're grabbing (no guess work).  In case you forget, it's also written on the side of the tool, and the 4 standard sizes are grouped together on one side and the 5 metric on the other.  Second, it has the standard/metric ruler that actually shows more than 2 lines like on the GIbson.  The CruzTools tool is slightly larger than the one from Gibson.

The CruzTools multitool seems to me to be a little more user friendly (it's labeled).  It also has a real ruler on it instead of the just the two tick marks, so it's a little more versatile.  It will be the one that gets to ride in my gig bag.