Missing Galleries

My One of a Kind and Past Work galleries are turned off temporarily until the crazy blog traffic calms down. I was mentioned in the Cool Tools blog last week which caused my traffic to increase to astonishing rates, literally several thousand people per day coming through. A couple of days of this caused my bandwidth to exceed the current limits and I had to move my whole site to a different server. Cost me a ton of time and a lot of money for my webmaster to do three days worth of changes. I should be in a lot better shape now though with a new plan that allows much greater bandwidth in case this happens again or if the higher traffic is sustained.

Server Switch

We have had to switch servers for Atwoodknives.com because of certain technical reasons. We are no longer on Phlaunt.com. The new URL is below:

http://www.atwoodknives.com

I'm hoping the move was glitch free and so far it seems to be. Thanks! :)

Making a Kydex Sheath

Here's a 5 minute clip of the steps involved in making a kydex knife sheath. Had a lot of fun making this one and fiddling around with the editing software.

Handwork!

Check out these moves as I debur one of my favorite little tools. Notice how I lean into the piece a little on the straightaways for a heavier removal. But then I back off and just barely pop the prytips where I want to preserve the square edges.

Robots

Dear Atwood Fans,

My webmaster is giving me a hard time about people running automatic software to check my site for updates. There have been a couple of people over the last few months who are significantly running up my bandwidth and transfer rates by checking my site once every minute. I'm asking you to please knock it off as it is a total pain in the ass to block these robots and it is wasting her time.

Let me be clear: We're talking about people running up 65,000 hits per week, not the folks checking 20 times per day. I appreciate the interest in my stuff and I know I'm having trouble keeping up with demand but you'd do better by emailing me every couple of days if you are that interested in obtaining an item. Thanks for your cooperation.

New items coming at the end of this week: Gasbabies, Hexbabies, talonite MSOPTHings, more ti mini keytons, Nothing will be released for the next three days as I am taking some time off for a family related activity.

Bending the XL Prybaby

Just in case you were hungry for a bit more in the ShopFlix series....:D

Whack Whack!

The last step before heat treat. :)

Cord Wrap Video

Here's a little something for all you cord wrap junkies...

Keep 'em Coming...

I know, it's the dog days of summer and your thoughts have turned to cold beer and the delights of air conditioning...luckily it isn't too warm in my shop yet this year. It will get a lot warmer though if the hot and humid spells last too long. Well, it's certainly warm enough for me and unfortunately my production tends to suffer with the temperature rise. I figure slow and steady wins the race though. :)

Here's a couple of recent goodies. More coming in the next few days!


Blue Tongue Damasteel Whistle:




Satin finish full sized Titanium Keytons:



Titanium GasBabies:

John Russell Cutlery

I had a really fun time today visiting the site of the historic John Russell Cutlery building in Turners Falls, MA. I took a bunch of pics and put up a separate blog devoted to it. Fascinating stuff and if you'll pardon the pun, a real slice of Americana. :)

The Russell Cutlery was a very important knife and tool maker located on the banks of the CT River from the 1870's until the Great Flood of 1936 wiped it out. The famous Green River Knife produced at the Cutlery was one of the most coveted tools taken with the settlers during America's western expansion of the mid to late 19th century.

Anyway, here's a link to pics and comments:

http://johnrussellcutlery.blogspot.com/2007/07/welcome.html

HexBaby

Here's the proto for the HexBaby. As in the GasBaby, the bottle opener area features a 7/16" wrench. Then you have hex sizes in 5/16", 1/4", 3/16" and 5/32". Wanted to get 3/8" in there but couldn't get it to lay out right. Maybe I'll fiddle around with it some more next time.

I am considering a metric size tool and will explore what the common sizes would be that will fit on the tool sometime over the summer. It could possibly be a bike tool version, we'll see.

It's a Gas, Baby!

Thought I'd put up a little teaser of an upcoming project...these will be coming in about 2 weeks or so. The Prybaby CG takes the basic Prybaby concept a little further, incorporating a 7/16" wrench at the bottle opening area and adding a 1/4" hex drive hole on the bottom right. The Compressed Gas or "CG" part comes in with the oxygen cylinder wrench, an excellent option for first responders or others in the medical field. Further function is introduced with two standard sized Acetylene tank wrenches for plumbers, welders and other tradesmen. The 58 Rockwell CPM 154 steel measuring nearly 3/16" thick ensures that these wrenches will last just about forever. A second variation featuring hex openings only is also coming at the same time.

Working, working, working...

I was working on the Ghouls and SOPTHings all day starting at 7AM this morning.The sheaths are coming along very well indeed. I made huge progress and will have the Ghouls and a few of the SOPTHings up on the site for purchase tomorrow.