Dutch makes a ton of awesome stuff, but if you want to rig your own with or without his components, these are pretty much a must have. I’ve used sail/saddle needles, guitar string, floral wire, and a bunch of other options for splicing small diameter cordage, but this is the only way to do it without a lot of frustration. If you’re doing big stuff like amsteel then the Dritz loop turner is the way to go, but once you get down under 3mm these will save a ton of headaches and restarts. Since all of my lines and even my backup cordage are Zing-it or equivalent, I even carry my preferred Zing-it sized hook in my repair kit on backpacking trips. Pro tip – if you wear sweaters or synthetics and get/hate snags (Velcro…uugh), these also work awesome for pulling them through to the back side to keep your stuff looking new. Save one technical shirt or sweater from the trash bin and you’ve more than justified having these tools around. I’m still finding new uses for them and I think I got them right after Dutch put them on the site…that’s been a while.
