Monday, November 27, 2017

Stamped Wroid SpinWrenches!

Howdy all,

Hope your Thanksgiving weekend was terrific! Mine was great and included several delicious turkey dinners...

Well as usual I am way behind on my many projects. Ever the optimist, I always think I'm making great progress only to be reminded when I take actual stock of said progress that a tremendous amount of work still remains. There are never enough hours in the day to get to it all either it seems...I'm not too worried however as many of the largest batches of items are either done or close to it. There will no doubt be plenty to keep me busy into the New Year as well. I'm going to try to ramp up the sales between now and the rest of the year though so we'll see how it all goes.

Well today I have a very cool new steel tool for you. These CPM 154 Wroid thickness SpinWrenches feature a 1/2 inch 12 Point wrench, 1/4" hex opening, extra leverage pry/screwdriver tip, 5/16 open wrench which doubles as a cap lifter and a center 3/8" pivot opening which is reamed to accept the spin cores from MD Engineering.  They are 3.25 inches long, weigh in at a whopping 37 grams and are .200 inches thick, so bruisers indeed. The weight is distributed towards the two ends so, while not precisely balanced, they are the closest of all my tools so far and they do spin pretty well.

The SpinWrenches feel fairly hefty in the hand and will actually spin easily even without a spin core if held lightly between thumb and forefinger tips. In profile they remind me a little of the older Hatchling tools but are much chunkier overall. Perhaps they are growing up and are at the "juvenile" stage of the series, hehe.

These tools have no extra grinds but they are stamped with a wide variety of my popular antique and modern blacksmith and jeweler stamps. I had a bit of fun with them and there are many unique examples here...I will send these out with random stamps as usual. There are a handful of lefties among these too btw.

These SpinWrenches will run $75 plus shipping. The batch is quite large so I will make it a limit of two per customer. If ordering more than one from a location outside the US, they will ship via Priority Mail International...a portion of the sale today will go to Fisher House Foundation in support of our military families. The link to order is right below and thank you so much for stopping by today!


All gone for now, thank you so much everyone! :)







Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Stainless Steel Wrunts

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Hard to believe it's the holiday season once again. Seems like we just had Thanksgiving about five minutes ago...time is certainly flying this year.

Well, there's been lots of progress here on numerous projects. I just finished prepping out some Zirconium Mini Bermuda Triangle spinners and will be trying to get them finished for a mid December time frame. Still working on the metric 3v steel Crawdaddies and I have those halfway prepped out as well, shooting for a similar time frame finish on those.

In other project news, I have more Mini 5 flute beads coming up soon. I'll be doing a second batch of titanium ones and this time will be anodizing them. There are a few bronze ones left as well so lots of anodizing and string tying is in my future.

Right now I am trying to finish up a big batch of steel Spin Wrench tools. These look somewhat similar to the Hatchling tools I made a while back but are much larger and they are all stamped. Will have those done right after Thanksgiving I hope.

Today I have the 17-4ph Stainless Steel Wrunts done. This is an interesting material and one that I have not used before, so this is basically a small first run test batch. They are all SAE, are Wroid thickness, have a great raw bar texture finish on both sides and there are a few lefties among them...

17-4ph stainless is a highly alloyed steel and has excellent corrosion resistance properties as well as high strength. Not only that, but it is one of the few true stainless steels that is hardenable and it is also magnetic. The maximum hardness is only in the mid 40's Rockwell so it won't hold a cutting edge which is why knifemakers have traditionally ignored it. However, it is plenty hard enough for a pry tool and I was pleasantly surprised at the durability in my performance testing. It held up beautifully to everything I threw at it, including several weeks of keychain carry and heavy use before heat treat, and even an overnight salt water soak after heat treat. The worst I saw was some minor surface discoloration where I had dumped a pile of pure salt directly on top of it for 10 hours and that light tea colored surface stain came off easily using a worn out green scotchbrite scrubby. Normal high carbon knife steels would be heavily pitted after such abuse so that was quite impressive. I'll be using this material again for sure in future projects.

The 17-4ph Stainless Steel Wrunts will run $70 plus shipping and the link is below. A portion of the sale today will be going to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. Wishing you all the very best for the upcoming holidays!

These are sold out for today, thank you again everyone!



   

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Metric Wrunts!

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Yup, I'm back again. Still having somewhat mild weather here although it is starting to look a lot like November...no snow in the forecast so far though which is fine by me. It's quite chilly and raw outside today so I'm sure that white stuff is not too far away.

Well today the Wrunt Parade continues! These are the Metric Wrunts with raw bar finish. Steel is the same, CPM 154 at 58-59 Rockwell, and these stout tools are once again built to outlast both you AND your heirs...hehe. The metric wrench set includes all sizes 8-12mm.

These will run $70 plus shipping and since this batch is once again fairly limited in size I will make it one per customer on them. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great weekend!

All gone, thank you so much!



Friday, November 17, 2017

Smooth Steel Wrunts

Howdy All,

Happy Friday everyone! I'm back with more...

First of all, thanks so much for the many kind words and emails after the first steel Wrunts sale! They are indeed stout and heavy little guys and I know you're all going to love them. There's something really satisfying about super chunky little tools like this that is hard to define but you know it as soon as it hits your hand. Like little nuggets or something...Great fun...anyway, the first ones went out days ago and should be getting to you today or tomorrow at the latest.

Well today I have the surface ground 58-59 Rockwell CPM 154 SAE Wrunts done. These are still quite hefty even though they are a little bit slimmer than the earlier raw bar version. I consider anything over .200 inches thick to be "wroid" thickness and at .210 inches thick and 30 grams each these certainly qualify. They tumbled for quite a while so have a nice soft feel to them.


These surface ground SAE Wrunts will run $70 plus shipping and the batch is small, only a few dozen, so one per customer on them please. Thanks for stopping by today and I will be coming back in a day or two with the metric raw bar version once I get them finished up so stay tuned.


Smooth ones are gone, thanks once again and hope you have a great weekend ahead!




Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Wroidy Steel Wrunts!

Hi Everyone,

Happy Wednesday! It's getting kind of raw out there this week, overcast skies and the air is starting to get that cold weather bite. Typical November weather. I have a sinking feeling I know what's coming next...

Well, the steel Wrunts have come back from heat treat at last and I've been busy with final finishes and sorting them. There are 5 different flavors here, all in fairly small batches. We'll start with the SAE ones first.

Today I have the SAE steel Wrunts completed. These are CPM 154 steel, and at .220 inches thick they are just shy of 1/4", so they certainly qualify as members of the "Wroid" series. They weigh in at 31 grams so they are hefty little guys, that's for sure. The raw bar mill texture varies but is fairly heavy on most of these which is why I elected to preserve it, heavier on the front side and lighter on the reverse side. And a second, smaller wave of these with smooth surface ground finish is waiting in the wings.

The CPM 154 Steel Wrunts will run $70 each plus shipping and it's a one per customer limit on them as the batch is small. Thanks for stopping by today and hope your week is terrific!

Raw Bars are gone, thank you so much!


 

Wednesday, November 08, 2017

Anodized Bermuda Beads

Hey Everyone,

Hope your week is going well!

We're still having freakishly warm weather this fall, but it looks like that is about to come to an end this week with our first and very late frost. It's due by the end of the week for sure as Friday's overnight temps are forecast to be around 13F! This will be good because the lawn, trees and gardens are a bit confused this year and need a good freeze so we can finish the end of the year cleanup. Also my cat has become an expert tick collector so I'm hoping the cold weather will finally slow everything down and knock out the bad bugs until Spring.

I've been working my brains out lately, not only prepping my house and shop for the coming frigid winter months, but also cranking out the tool projects. Tons of steel Wrunts are at heat treat and should be back sometime within the next week. I also sent a large batch of a new steel wroid thickness SpinWrench tool, with stamps, off to heat treat last Friday. So there will be some very interesting items coming up as the month progresses. ;)

Also in the works is the final batch of titanium R37 rulers. Hoping to start finishing those next week when they come back from getting their lines milled. In addition, I am halfway through prepping the 3v steel metric Crawdaddies and hope to have those done around early or mid December. And, new batches of special bronze, stainless and brass SpinCoins are finally almost finished...a few other tasty goodies are on the way as well so lots to look forward to before the end of the year.  Zr Mini Triangles anyone? :D

Today I have the rest of the titanium Bermuda Beads done. These all have cute little "wingtip" grinds on them and are anodized a wide variety of solid colors and color fades. Really cool looking. I will be sending these out randomly so can't get into color requests, but they are all nice, and the colors are much more vibrant than how my quick and lousy photo turned out. Terrible flat light yesterday is my excuse and I'm too lazy to reshoot them! Haha......anyway, there is a limit of 4 per customer please and they will run $35 plus shipping....thanks again everyone and I hope the rest of your week ahead is great.

All gone, thanks again folks!