Fancy R37 Rulers!

Hi Folks,

Hope you're winding up a good week and getting ready for a super weekend ahead! We're still having very mild weather here and despite the drab foliage a few bright leaves have popped out here and there. Very disappointing foliage season though, so hopefully we will have a better one next year...

Well, it's been a very eventful week here. Had some moments of panic after a big equipment breakdown but that is thankfully fixed now. So I can head into the winter months without worry, now that things are up to date and better organized as well. I also managed to get some grinding in and quite a bit of finish work too, so it was an extremely productive week all around....the steel Wrunts are finishing up in the tumbler today and will finally be heading out to heat treat over the weekend. I also got going on the next big batch of ti rulers and will try to get them prepped out for milling next week.

Today I have the next wave of R37 Ti Rulers done. This is a medium sized batch and the bright ano lovers are going to be very pleased I think...I had a lot of fun making these super bright with two tone contrast anodizing. The textured titanium is just shy of 1/4" thick so they are very hefty, and the center holes are reamed for a press fit if you want to install a 3/8 spinner button from Scott McCoskery. The texturing was light and much of it tumbled away but that left very cool mint green colored flecks on these. When contrast anodized to dark colors it makes a sort of Van Gogh Starry Night effect. Very fun stuff and I wish my feeble pics below did a better job capturing just how bright these are.

None of these tools are stamped, but I do plan to stamp the next wave of regular 5/32 thickness titanium R37s that I am just starting to work on now.

I do have some lefties today though... and, for those folks who just can't stand color, I did save out a dozen plain rulers. So if you want a plain one of these super thick R37s just give me a holler (via email please, not in the comments here, as I do not always know who all the folks are who leave messages) and I will do my best to hook you up. ;) lottagear2000-pp@yahoo dot com

The fancy ti R37s will run $85 plus shipping and the link is below. Thanks for stopping by everyone, and have a fabulous weekend ahead!


Sold out, thank you so much everyone!

Zirconium KingPins!

Hi Folks,

Happy Wednesday to you all! Hope your week is going well...

Yup, believe it or not, I'm back for the second day in a row with another sale. The slow periods over the past few months were well spent I can assure you, and even though things have been somewhat quiet for long stretches I have been toiling away daily on various projects. So I am hoping that all that preparation and groundwork will set us up for a very busy fall season as I set out to finish many of these projects which I have started and are in various stages of completion. That's the plan anyway, haha.

Well today I have the next wave of KingPins ready to go. I am still in the middle of hand grinding all the pins, so as I continue to pick away at those I will have a few more of these zirconium ones coming, as well as the copper and titanium versions. But for now I have a good bunch of these done in Zr... so, just enough for a decent sale. A few dozen more unmounted Zr heads remain however which I will finish up as soon as I can get to them.

Now then, I have spent a lot of time on these Zr KingPins and I'm pleased with the results so far with this batch. They're a bit tricky to grind but I have a good system figured out for them now and these have a decent amount of taper on the pins. I think you will be pleased as well with the final product.

The Zr KingPins have a heat colored 1/2 diameter head with my familiar 5 flute design. The 5 flute shape is easy to grip and manipulate and provides an excellent anti roll effect, so this tool will stay put when you lay it down! The tapered pins themselves are hardened steel and are 1/8 inch in diameter so quite stout. The KingPins are just under 3 inches in overall length, just about 3 inches total with the included vinyl slip sheath. The simple tubing sheath makes these quite safe to carry in a pocket and is of course easily replaceable. A great tool for all sorts of delicate picking, scraping, poking, sorting and mixing tasks.

The Zr KingPins will run $85 plus shipping and it's a one per customer sale on them for now as the batch is not enormous. If you really need more than one though, just let me know via email and I can hook you up as more will be coming down the road. Thanks for stopping in today folks and stay safe out there!

These are gone for today, thank you so much everyone!

Plain Ti Wrunts!

Hi Everyone,

Well Happy Tuesday to you! Hope all is well out there and you're enjoying the first week of fall. We have been having very unusual weather here lately, quite hot for this time of year but now temps are starting to come down to more normal levels. The trees are suffering this year though from a variety of factors and are very drab, particularly the maples which have a fungal blight, so the famous New England foliage season looks like it is going to be a bust.

Since my fine grinding belts still have not arrived (due sometime this week) I've been busy grinding pins for the KingPin series. Almost ready to do the Zirconium ones next up! Copper and Titanium KingPin heads are still in the wings too so lots more pin grinding is ahead for me this fall. In other news, the next ti R37 rulers have been milled this week so those will be on the way in a few days as well.

Well today I have the remaining titanium Wrunts finished. These are the plain ones and it's a very small batch...there are a few lefties among them and I also have maybe a dozen anodized Wrunts remaining if anyone wants to email and ask for them. Thanks for stopping by and I hope your week is a great one!

Plains are sold out, thanks again!

Titanium Wrunts

Hi Everyone,

Hope everyone is surviving all the weather calamities around the world. It's just relentlessly awful  lately, and in so many different places...tough year for so many people!

I've been steadily chipping away at all sorts of stuff this past week, but slower to finish things than I would like. I recently ran out of fine grinding belts and discovered that the one box that I thought was full turned out to contain some coarser grit belts that I am no longer using. Will be another week or two before Norton makes me the ones I need by special order. In the meantime I will try to continue to make progress on some of the other neglected projects over the coming weeks...As far as tools that needed cleanup grinding are concerned, I do have some more R37 Rulers in super thick 1/4" inch Krinkle ti coming up and those are well on their way to completion. Other tool projects will have to wait a week or so before work can resume...

Today I have the first wave of Wrunts finished. The Wrunts are redesigned for 2017 and these first ones are made of lightly textured Krinkle Titanium. Upcoming batches will be in two different steels and some will be metric, but this batch is entirely "SAE",  meaning American wrench sizes only. The wrench set includes sizes 1/4-1/2", and there is also an improved cap lifter and a stout pry tip. The material is almost 1/4" thick so they are quite beefy indeed and overall this tool feels far more robust than the older Wrunts I made years ago.

The new Wrunts are just a little bit longer (OAL is 2.8") than the originals so that I could get the geometry of the pry tip into a more manageable angle. Also, the thumb grip area features my old "tiki grind" shape which is not only very cool looking but also provides a welcome tactile feel and sure grip. I elected to keep the grinds simple on these so there is not much variation in that department. However, these are anodized in a very wide variety of colors, both solid colors and many types of color fades and color "splash" looks. There are some plain non ano ones too, available upon request, as well as a few lefties in the batch.

The Titanium Wrunt17s will run $65 plus shipping and the link to order is below. It's not a huge batch so it will be one per customer on them please. Thank you as always for stopping by, and I do hope everyone is staying safe and dry!


All gone for today, thank you so much everyone!

Steel Superbugs!

Hi Folks,

Hope you're having a great week. I have been working my brains out this past week on projects and before that took a few days off to enjoy a little bit of summer vacation. But I am back and working hard to get some stuff done.

Obviously things are a bit of a mess down South, to put it mildly, and by the looks of things it's about to get worse with hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida. Thoughts, prayers and love are with our friends in the southern states this week! As a small contribution I am setting aside some funds today for the Food Bank of Houston...could be doing the same next week for Miami. :(

Well, there is a lot of stuff in play at the moment. It's been a crazy hive of activity here as I move projects along and a few are even hitting the finish line. Finally! Steel Wrunts are about to receive their final grinds, and titanium Wrunts are in the tumblers right now before getting some ano lovin'...I have a new wroidy spinning steel tool in progress called the Juggernaut and those are heading for the tumblers next before their final touches, and then they will be headed to heat treat. The next two waves of ti rulers are in the beginning stages of work, still a few weeks away on those.

Today I have most of the steel Superbug17s ready to go. I say "most" because these darn things gave me fits! It seems that when I applied the name stamp I had repositioned the tools in the stamp press in a different way than normal. When stamping I failed to notice that a small burr on the anvil was imprinting into the back side of the tool on every hammer strike. I never noticed a thing until the final polish tumbling step after heat treat when a mysterious mark appeared on the back side. Grrrrrrrr. Luckily I was able to sort them out and most of the tools turned out to be perfectly acceptable although you might spot a faint shadow mark in certain lights. The remaining pieces that had actual dents had to be sanded down and refinished over the past several days, and so the batch has now been pretty much rescued. This past week just underscores how something can go wrong anywhere in the making process and getting to the finish line is always a perpetual balancing act. 

The CPM 154 Steel Superbug17 offers a cool update to the old Superbug series. They are just shy of 3 inches long and the material is nearly 3/16" thick. I have given them a more effective screwdriver/XL pry tip/wrench/cap lifter arrangement for the nose. They have a cool new curved, ergonomic middle section, plus my usual captive bit system and a rear pry tip with Area 51 style grinds. The batch is quite uniform so there are no grind variations on these and no decorative stamps at all on this batch. There are a few lefties though...     

The Superbug 17s will run $70 plus shipping and it's a one per customer sale on them please...if you need more than one just drop me a line as I do have more of these on the way over the next few days as I continue to finish them up....stay safe everyone, especially you folks who are in the path of the storms, and thanks so much for dropping by today.

Superbugs are gone for today, thank you!

    

R37 Ruler Tools!

Hi Everyone,

Wow, we are hurtling along through August at Mach 1. Hard to believe the summer is almost gone...

Not too much to report on projects, but hopefully Superbugs will be back from heat treat around the end of next week. I have a bunch of grinding in front of me too, so it's always a never ending challenge to juggle production and sales. We'll see how it goes.

Today I have the first wave of titanium R37 Rulers done. A number of people asked for plain ones, so I decided to do one full release with totally plain finish, with no stamping and no color anodizing. The second and third batches are already scheduled to cut next week and so stamped rulers and fancy color anodized ones will be coming in subsequent releases. But these today are all simple and very clean looking, and I will not be coloring any of these or adding stamps.

The R37 Rulers are made from the same robust 5/32 6al4v titanium stock as the older R25 series. They feature a 1/4 hex opening, 5/16 open wrench which doubles as a cap lifter, a 8,9,10mm metric wrench set and a center opening which is reamed to accept Scott McCoskery's nifty 3/8" spin cores. The 3 inch ruler scale is permanently marked (thanks to Kenn Jordan for a fantastic job on the deep CNC milling!) and there is a 70mm scale on the reverse side. All in all, this is a gorgeous heirloom quality tool with quite a variety of functions. I am sure your great grand kids and generations beyond will love it as much as you do!

R37 ti Rulers will run $75 plus shipping, and it is one per customer on these please. As I said, plenty more of these ruler tools are coming so no worries if you miss today, will be many chances to score them up the road. Thanks for dropping by this morning everyone, and I hope your weekend is great.


R37 Rulers are gone for now, more coming up the road, Thanks so much everyone!

Titanium Mini 5 Flutes!

Hi Everyone,

Happy Monday! It's shaping up to be a lovely mid August week here in the northeast, although there has already been a tinge of fall in the air. This really has been the coolest and wettest summer in recent memory and I hope it doesn't mean we are in for another very long and cold winter.

Well the projects are in full swing right now. The steel Superbugs are at heat treat and should be back very soon. I have the new titanium R37 Rulers Tools close to done so those will be coming along hopefully around the end of the week, with a second batch already tentatively planned. Once these two projects are done I will be moving along to both steel and titanium Wrunts, and also Zr KingPins for early September. There is a ton of work ahead but I am taking my time and trying to enjoy the little bit of summer we have remaining.

Well today I finally have the first wave of titanium Mini 5 Flute beads done. I decided to leave these with a neutral stonewashed finish and they are on a variety of cord colors. I still have more in process down in the shop and so a future release will probably be color anodized. I'm not planning on making any stainless steel Minis so these will probably be the only ones for those of you who want a bare "silver" metal color choice.

The Titanium Mini 5 Flutes will run $30 each plus shipping and there is a four per customer limit on them. Thanks as always for dropping by today and hope your week is productive one!

These are all gone for today, thank you so much!