Hi Folks,
Hard to believe the end of summer is drawing near. We continue to get tons of rain and this will no doubt go down in the books as one of the rainiest summers on record. Hope it doesn't continue into one of the snowiest winters on record!
I keep on chugging away on the projects. I have a little more grinding to do on titanium Prybabies and then I can start finishing those up. Hope to have them completed by next week. I just got more of the Zircuti MikroSpikes cut, so those will be coming in a few weeks. The larger Atomic Wedgies in steel were just surface ground, so I will get them prepped out and ready to mill very soon. Those will take me a month or two to complete...I just drew up a new tool called the SupaWrench and that little gem will be getting cut in thick steel very soon. I haven't forgotten the puzzle project and hope to get some of those done in the next couple of weeks. And, I just signed back up for the community clay center because I am dying to make some new coffee mugs which I haven't made in 20 years, so hoping to bring you guys a few dozen of those later this fall for a little something different. ;)
Today I have some brand new tools for you. These Mini Wedgies are crazy thick, over 1/4", and are made of a unusual titanium alloy. I was told this stuff is Beta Titanium but I have not been able to find out much info about it. At any rate, many years ago, when I first started out making tools, a local friend told me that his dad owned a knife company. That company happened to be Mission Knives in California! I believe they are still in business, although the original owner, former Bell Labs engineer John Moore, passed away a number of years ago. Anyhow, my buddy John persuaded his dad to send me a sheet of the special material that they used for folding knife blades, and that sheet has been sitting around for many years gathering dust and waiting for me to decide what to make out of it!
These Mini Wedgies are rather robust as I mentioned....they measure .265 inches thick, so that makes them among the most heavy duty Wroid Class tools that I have made, and certainly the thickest titanium tools. They are about 3.25 inches long and feature a large pry tip, plus rear offset pry end with 5/16 wrench and opener. If you ever wanted a solid block of titanium for your key ring this is it, lol...the Mini Wedgies have a rustic feel to them, a light raw bar finish with plenty of character marks, and a glassy tumbled finish. I decided to do a small release of plain Jane ones first without stamps (Atwood stamp is on the back) or anodizing, but a much larger batch is nearly done and will be coming in a day or so with stamps and color anodizing....and yes, there are some lefties here as well if anyone wants to drop me a request.
Plain Beta Titanium Mini Wedgies will run $65 plus shipping and the link is below. Thanks for stopping by (as always!), and I hope your week is going great.
Woah, gone in a jiffy! No worries, tons of stamped and anodized ones are on the way. ;)