Nice emergency toolset but design issues can lead to it falling apart

Overall I've liked this set over the past few years but it has a few serious design flaws which for me meant that I had to reassemble it using a heavy helping of blue threadlocker after it fell apart in my bag. As a bonus I only managed to lose one of the washers! -The lock washers that are used to hold the thing together are the cut washer type which from an engineering standpoint literally do nothing once everything has been tightened. I supposed they could help in light of the next design flaw I will mention but in my case they didn't. It's truly astonishing that manufacturers have ever used these types of lock washers and completely insane that they continue to do so. -The rods that threads through each end and are responsible for tying all the individual tools together are about 1/4" too short. This means that when you tighten it down you don't tighten against the rod, you tighten against all of the tools. The effect of this is that you can't really tighten them down an effective amount because the individual tools won't be able to swing out. They did put a small dab of blue threadlocker on it but it wasn't enough to prevent mine from falling apart. I suggest that anyone who buys this disassembles it and puts a healthy helping of blue or maybe even red threadlocker on the threads. Once applying a bunch of threadlocker it seems to stay together enough for infrequent use. If you are someone who only has this for emergencies then I consider it a worthwhile tool for your pack. If you are planning on using this frequently then I suggest looking elsewhere. I see a lot of complaints about rust but unfortunately that is the nature of things. Stainless would be too heavy (and softer), aluminum would be too soft, and titanium would be too expensive. I suppose there could be a better coating on it but in the end you just need to not let it sit around wet. Keeping it slightly oiled would also help.

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