All About Pocket Knives

I'm pretty sure I picked this up when I went to see the burnt down location of the Camillus factory and found a knife shop across the street. It been so long ago, I think the guy that owed the shop worked for the custom shop at Camillus. I vaguely remember him saying this was a tool for removing the glass out of a helicopter???

DZUS key. Used for any panel in aircraft (and often racecars as well) that they needed to work on often. I think the fasteners are just quarter-turn.

Matt4nash wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2026 11:47 pm I'm pretty sure I picked this up when I went to see the burnt down location of the Camillus factory and found a knife shop across the street. It been so long ago, I think the guy that owed the shop worked for the custom shop at Camillus. I vaguely remember him saying this was a tool for removing the glass out of a helicopter???

That’s cool you picked this up at a shop by the old Camillus factory. Your tool has a connection to either fixed wing or rotary aircraft,can’t remember. There’s a thread either on the Camillus area or the military threads here at AAPK .Seem to remember there was a military spec sheet posted as well . PS I see M B posted the link.

Thank you guys for all the info. That other tread was very informative also. Any idea of the approximate dates they manufacturered these? Were they made for the military?

I thought I had the blueprints for that tool somewhere! Many years ago, Tom Williams sent me a bunch of blueprints from the Camillus factory, In this blueprint was among them. I remember using such a tool in the Marine Corps on the pod mounted start units we occasionally had to install on the F4 Phantom jets. The tool is used to lock down panels on equipment such as the start units and other pieces of gear used on the flight line. Our job was known as GSE, (Ground Support Equipment), in the Marine Corps and Navy, and it was called AGE, (Aerospace Ground Equipment) by the Air Force. The tool was also used to lock and unlock panels on the skin of the aircraft. Although I never worked on the aircraft themselves, we use the same fasteners and the same tools on many of the pieces of equipment used around the aircraft.
Although I was issued a Camillus TL-29 in the Marine Corps, which I was allowed to keep, I was never issued an aircraft panel fastener tool. We didn't use the tool very often in GSE, so I don't recall the official name of it. I think we mostly called it a panel fastener tool. There probably was a specific name for it, but I just don't remember it after 50 some odd years!
Camillus however, called it a 5711, Fastener Key.

Cool!
But 20 years on aircraft in the AF, I never used or saw one.
All dzus fasteners I dealt with just used a common screwdriver.
If I happened to be away from the toolbox, a coin would work.

Here are the Dzus fasteners, I found a few in a tool box I bought at a garage sale years ago. They were thumb knob opened or slotted to use the tool.

Overt, what a cool story. Thank you so much for sharing that blueprint. Now I have to get a shadow box made with the blueprint and the tool together.

OLDE CUTLER wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 3:11 pm Here are the Dzus fasteners, I found a few in a tool box I bought at a garage sale years ago. They were thumb knob opened or slotted to use the tool.

20260515_100724.jpg

Flash-back!!

Dzus was the brand name of that particular style of panel fastener that required a special tool to engage. Most of the military fasteners could be engaged with a common screwdriver and were named CAM-LOC or AIR-LOC.

May have been spelled AER-LOC. It was 60 years ago!