This review is cursed. First, when Todd from TT PockeTTools sent me the 69 I realized I could not fit my extra fat car keys on the split rings provided. Curse #1. Then I bought a split ring pliers online and it came but wouldn't work. Curse #2. Then I bought one in person at Wal-Mart (in the fishing section, thanks for the Twitter tip), and it worked, but the split rings provided broke under the strain of opening them wide enough for my fat keys. Curse #3. Finally, I got larger split rings and everything fit on perfectly. I snapped some pics and dropped the review, written and formatted. When I went to add in the picture of the bonus item the whole thing vanished. Instead of pasting the picture in, I accidentally wiped the entire review and then Blogger saved over it automatically. Curse #4. Grrr...

What did Winston Churchill say about giving up?

The TT PockeTTools 69 is an excellent dangler keychain. It is a bit more than a regular dangler--it has the ability to open both pop top and twist off bottle caps and it holds more than one thing. Ideally it will be a keychain or the hub in a microtools set up. In either role it will work well. Its light, well made, and titanium. I like titanium. Perhaps you have noticed.

Here is the TT PockeTTools 69 page. This is the first review. Here is the 69 review sample all set up:

Danglers are a growing part of EDC and for good reason. There is all of this cool gear or boring keys that need some way to hang in place and a dangler lets you do that. Here you accomplish the dangling via split rings, as is customary for danglers. I hate split rings, as you probably know, but really there is no other way I can think of to make a dangler. I am sure some clever inventor out there will prove me wrong, but until that happens, the 69's set up is one of the best given the hobbled design of split rings. My difficulty fitting my fat keps and key fob on here are emblematic of the problem, but if you accept that split rings are a necessary evil for a dangler to work, then you can be confident that the rest of the design is actually quite good. The overall size is nice, the spacing is good, allowing you to have up eight items hooked on, but with fatty Mcfatty keys four is a more likely number. I should note that this 69 acts as an excellent hub for a keychain of microtools. I loaded it up with a Gerber Dime, a MBI HF-R, a Shard, and an RFID tag from my gas station and it worked quite well. As a keychain, its nice, as a tool hub, it might be just a bit better.

The 69 is made of titanium and the first thing that happened when I picked it up was my eye and my hand had a little disagreement with each other. Something this thick and made of metal should not be this light, but you know how titanium works. The edges aren't chamfered, but nicely eased. The twist assist is cut very, very well and fits tightly on to a bottle top.

The big innovation with the 69 is the hook. Many danglers have these deep or complex hook designs to keep the dangler from falling out of your pocket, but here the hook is small but incredibly effective. I went on multiple long hikes, up and down steep terrain with the 69 "locked in" to the fabric of my jeans like so:

Not once did it dislodge or come loose. The incredible thing here is that most dangler hooks add a tremendous amount of size or material to the overall design and are still not as secure as the hook on the 69. For me, this is what makes the 69 pull ahead of the pack. It is also a sign of how danglers should be designed in the future.

The 69 comes with dual action bottle openers (perhaps an allusion to the two at once name, though I am fairly certain it comes from the shape): a cap lifter and Todd's great twist assist. No bottled beverage stands a chance against you and your 69.

The cap lifter works and works well. It is a single pull cap lifter, as all good designs should be. When a maker bills their cap lifter as a "double pull" design that just means the interior angle is not properly cut. Here we have a talon like decapitates beer bottles swiftly and effectively.

I normally grip the entire set up so the keys are in my palm, but I needed to show you the angle the lifter takes to a bottle. Even loaded up the cap lifter was easy to use.

Here is the twist assist in action (around an especially seasonal and delicious brew):

Again the fit is remarkable here as the entire set up stayed in place without me holding it. I am duly impressed. Like the cap lifter, the twist assist was a cap guillotine--swift and effective.

Overall, the 69 is a very good dangler, noting the limitations dictated by the form (namely, the use of split rings). The two way bottle opening action is very good and the number of tools it can carry is impressive, though fully loaded you might stray into janitor territory. As a keychain it is good and as a microtool hub its probably a bit better. The real innovation here is the absolute lock down hook. That thing will never come undone. If my experience is any indication you will lose your pants or your pocket before you lose your keys. The fact that this hook takes up so little space sets the 69 ahead of the crowd.

Thumb Drive:

Todd also sent me a sample of one of his smallest and simplest tools: the Chevy logo. Oh wait, no not the Chevy logo, its a 1/4 inch hex bit driver and a wing nut opener called the Thumb Drive. It too is made of titanium and it drives bits very easily, though torque is limited by your thumb and fore finger. As a wing nut opener it works well too, though I am not sure how many wing nuts you'll encounter (unless you live in California or DC and are referring to the OTHER kind of wing nut). Its not a lifesaver, but a neat little tool that is made well and made of titanium.