Optimising my EDC – time for an overhaul

Recently I’ve been finding myself getting increasingly frustrated with the daily chore of fumbling through my poorly-organised EDC (Every Day Carry) key ring arrangement every time I need something from it. This happens a lot, so I decided that my EDC needed a good overhaul; it was time to give it a spring clean. I started considering the various options for how I could best keep my EDC organised, and what functionality I’d like it to have.

There are a couple of commonly used solutions for keeping your EDC in check; either some kind of key ring / wire keychain assembly, or a wallet / pocket organiser pouch. My sprawling mess of daisy-chained split rings hadn’t really been working for me. Frequently the split rings would ‘tangle’ up, and keys would sometimes get lodged through the other split rings. Occasionally the split rings would catch in the stitching inside my pocket, meaning that my keys would need to be extracted carefully to avoid doing damage. And with my keys and other hard-edged bits of kit all jutting out at different angles, it’d often feel like I had an angry porcupine in my pocket. So this type of arrangement was no longer right for me. Now I do carry a standard leather wallet to keep all of my cards, and a few banknotes and coins. But the option of just having a wallet containing everything wouldn’t work for me, as there are a few bulky items that I carry that wouldn’t fit. EDC pocket organiser pouches, on the other hand, are great for carrying a substantial collection of larger items. They also help to keep your gear covertly hidden away, but in doing so this does make it a little harder to access. For me, I wanted to try and hit the sweet spot of having a well-organised selection of gear that is also quick and easy to access.

As there weren’t any solutions to this jumping out at me from what’s available on the EDC organiser market, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to road test one of our upcoming products, the ‘Revolver’.

The Revolver

The Revolver is designed to be a stylish, lightweight and low-profile solution for organising EDC, that will also allow you to neatly sort your gear into situational ‘categories’ that can be quickly detached and re-attached. So for example you might have a set of house keys, a set of work keys, your car keys, and a couple of EDC tools.

The Revolver allows you to carry these sets in a logical and organised fashion, and grants quick and easy access via snap hooks that can be attached to the ‘chambers’. Ideal kept as a pocket EDC unit (my carry method of choice), and can also be attached to and hung from your belt via lanyard / belt clip / keychain. The ‘Wild West’ revolver styling is furthered by its colour case-hardened finish, which is not only eye-catching and beautiful, but also makes for a very hardwearing ‘hub’ for EDC.

So with the central core of my EDC sorted, and my various keys attached, I moved on to populating it with some newly-acquired gear.

Leatherman Juice S2 Multitool

One thing I knew straight away that I’d want for my revamped EDC is a Leatherman. I always find myself with tasks that require either a screwdriver, scissors, or a small blade. Having all three to hand at all times would be extremely useful, and a Leatherman does a very good job of providing these tools, in a robust yet pleasantly compact form. I opted for the excellent Leatherman Juice S2, which has everything that I regularly find myself needing, without being too large for every day pocket carry.

LED Lenser K3 Torch

I also wanted a small pocket torch, as I was finding that the ‘torch’ function on my smartphone just took too many button presses to activate. The LED Lenser K3 really fitted in here, being both lightweight and of nice build quality. It throws out quite a lot of light for its size, too!

Firefly Mega Glow GTLS Kit Marker

So that I can easily locate my EDC in the dark when it’s not already safely in my pocket, I needed either some kind of glow-in-the-dark material, or an always-on light source, and so I went for this Gaseous Tritium Light Source kit marker by Firefly. With a half-life of just over 12 years, tritium light sources don’t need to be replaced in a hurry, they do their job well, and these particular ones look very cool indeed.

BIC Mini Lighter

Although I’m sure to carry my Polymath Products EDC Fire Kit for dependable fire lighting when out camping or hiking, it’s never going to be as quick as a good old BIC lighter for general fire lighting requirements, such as BBQ ignition. To enable fitment to the Revolver, I modified my BIC with a ranger band and paracord loop. I also ran an o-ring around the cap of the lighter, locking the gas switch in place to prevent accidental fuel leaks in my pocket.

550lb Paracord Lanyard

Paracord has so many functions, too many in fact to list here. So I included a 1m length of paracord in the form of a cobra-stitched lanyard. There’s one more useful function of this when used in combination with the Revolver; it acts as a ‘handle’ for pulling the EDC out of my pocket, and for holding the EDC up to allow easy selection, as pictured to the left.

My newly-overhauled EDC

Well, I’m very pleased with how this has turned out, with all of my EDC functional requirements being addressed, and ending up with a practical EDC key ring assembly that also looks pretty neat with the black on metal colour coding that I went for. Looking forward to putting all this pocket-sized gear to good use now!