Hi Everyone,
Well, it's been another chaotic and hectic week here. I really need for things to settle down for a few days so I can relax for a change. Maybe I'll take a few days off in the next week or two and try to do something that is neither house renovation or business related. With any luck we should be getting some fall foliage pretty soon and that will provide a few good excuses for a mini vacation I'm sure.
There has been a lot going on here with projects. I'm almost done with the first wave of textured titanium Mini P15 Prybabies. These are going to be little gems and I'm trying to decide how I want to finish them. I may make some plain ones and then do some with anodizing, we shall see how they go... And I need to spend a couple of days grinding new steel tools so I can get more into the heat treat pipeline. I have more CPM 154 P15 Roid Prybabies (surface ground), Mini 3V Wedgies and Tombstones already prepped out and ready to grind, just gotta make the time to get them going.
Today I have a batch of P15 Roid Prybabies done. For this design I wanted to revisit one of my old favorites, the G5 Prybaby, and make some improvements. I gave these deeper hexi grips, added the deep sine wave style lower grip and increased the overall width of the tool slightly to give the whole package a beefier profile. I love the resulting shape and it feel terrific in the hand.
Did I mention these are beefy? They vary a little bit but most are close to 1/4" in thickness so are very heavy duty indeed! The steel is CPM 154 and features include my standard SAE 1/4- 9/16 wrench set, a heavy duty pry tip with deep V, cap lifter and secondary 3/8 wrench opening. (I do plan a brand new metric version of this tool and the also related Mini version but I am not quite there yet. Once some of the current projects are moved out I can think about cutting new designs but my cutting quota is already exceeded for the year and my bean counter is already giving me a hard time... :D)
In my recent home improvement activities I did some extensive testing of all the tool versions in this series and the deeper V is very effective in staple and small nail pulling. The tool excels in paint can opening, trim and molding prying and all sorts of other tasks. And yes, a few beers did get opened as well.
The P15 Roids have a light Raw Bar finish and there hints of color left in the crevices and corners that look a little like rust but are actually tempering colors that I left on the tools. Expect to see nicks, scrapes, gouges, pinholes, heat shadows, surface marks, dings, scratches, waves, bumps and numerous other minor irregularities resulting from the rollers at the mill as the hot sheet was rolled out. This is a double batch and for this first wave I wanted to give you the maximum Roid thickness possible so I cut two sheets of this material and sorted out the best looking ones for the Raw Bar Batch. The second half of the batch is already underway but those pieces had really rough surfaces so they were all surface ground, thus losing a little bit in thickness but gaining in smoother cosmetic appearance.
Incidentally I asked the mill a few years back about heavy Raw Bar textures. They were cagey and a little defensive when I was asking for rougher textured sheets. The reply I got was that they have been trying hard to produce smoother sheets for some time by changing out old rollers more frequently because no other makers want rough surfaces. Most makers have to sand it all off to get to the "good" steel you see and they get complaints sometimes since steel is sold by weight... So it figures that I'm the only "weirdo" who actually finds heavy texture a plus. :)
Anyhow, these Raw Bar Roid P15 Prybabies will run $85 plus shipping and the purchase link is below. Thanks so much for stopping by everyone and hope you all have a great weekend ahead!
P15 Roids are gone for now, thank you!
