Plainsies!

Hi Folks,

It's a bit cool and wet this week here in New England. Fall is in full swing though finally and I do believe that this weekend will probably be peak foliage. No doubt many leaf peepers will be driving through our state over the weekend. Sometimes the leaves are more dramatic against a gray sky and other times the sunshine lights up individual trees or branches. It's always a lovely time of year here regardless.

Project updates: Actually not too much to report because I've been busy working on finishing these ti Minis. But I am happy to announce that a Krinkle Textured Metric P15 Mini Prybaby is in the works and will be cut soon. So you can expect to see those in a month or so. I still have not ground the steel Mini Wedgies, the SAE and Metric Tombstones and the rest of the P15 surface ground Roids but those are all also on deck.  

Thanks so much for the enthusiastic response for the anodized P15 Mini Prybabies! As the many beautiful Toolbook photos show, they are quite extraordinary both in texture and in color. I have to tell you that it has not been easy for me to part with them because I sort of wish I could keep them all. :)


Today I have the other half of the Krinkle Textured Mini P15 Prybaby batch done. I'm leaving these plain with no anodizing because I know that many folks want user tools or maybe they just prefer vanilla over maple fudge swirl.... Others might want a plain one so they can do their own anodizing. In any case, this next group has fantastic and varied texture on them so you Raw Bar lovers are really in for a treat.

The plain Krinkle Ti Minis are $70 plus shipping and the link is below. One per customer please on them. Thanks everyone and happy autumn!

Plain ones are gone for now, thanks again everyone!

Titanium Mini P15 Prybabies!

Hi Folks,

Things are cooling down here in New England and the foliage is finally starting to get underway. Everything is late this year but that's OK by me because the temperatures have been mild and the days are quite enjoyable right now. I'm going to try to get some photography time in this weekend and early next week.

Projects are slowly progressing. I will be doing some grinding next week and hope to get at least one steel batch into the pipeline for later this month. As the weather gets colder I will be inside more and more and will try to really get things cranking.

Today I have a real treat for you Raw Bar lovers out there. As you know, for many years I have tried to select steels with heavy textured finishes whenever possible because I just love that Raw Bar look and feel. Unfortunately it is always hit or miss obtaining that type of material though and in recent years it has become very difficult to procure it. But it's always steel, I have never found any titanium with nice texture because it generally comes very smooth from the mills and usually with a bead blasted or brushed finish. Until now that is...recently I came across a small cache of a very interesting Krinkle Texture 6AL4V titanium and not only is this some of the best Raw Bar I have ever seen on ANY material, but the sheets are thick too, averaging around 3/16" or greater in thickness.

This is the first of several waves of Krinkle Textured Titanium Mini P15 Prybabies and they are really something. The wildly varying texture gives the color anodizing many angles and surfaces on which to reflect light and the result is simply stunning. The 3/16" thickness gives these tools a little more heft than usual and a fantastic feel in the hand. They are tiny, being a perfectly scaled down version of the recent P15, measuring just 2 5/8" long, and they feature five SAE wrench sizes 1/4-1/2 with the deep style V notch and a 5/16 cap lifter. It's as if I stuck a P15 in the clothes dryer and set it on high heat for an hour...just an ideal balance of size, weight, function and aesthetics in my opinion, especially if you're a mini tool fan like me. :)

This first wave of Mini Ti P15 Prybabies are all anodized and I will be making a second batch that will be plain with no anodizing, possibly a third wave as well, we'll see how it goes. October will be Mini Prybaby Month so no worries, lots are on the way.

The Ti Minis will run $70 plus shipping and the purchase link is below. The colors are all different so I will send you what I send you but rest assured they are all gorgeous. As always a big thank you to everyone for stopping by and I hope your fall is a great one so far!

Anodized ones are all gone for now, thank you folks!




  

   

  

Can Lightning Really Strike Twice? :D

Mwuaaahhahhhhaaa, you bet it can! How about a Round Two for the second half of the batch? Here are the rest of the lucky winners:

17 Joe

50 hax

66 MW

133 aricaric

140 Bryan Cooper

158 Jason S

162 Imnotascoolasu 

180 Toan Nguyen

187 MrCrypto

210 Mruhland31

220 Hamish

267 ag_nyc

273 Scott

330 brian

339 Richieyoo

378 poundtown

398 Brian

405 Glad I don\'t have a VW diesel.

423 DKirby 

434 Silverfox 

473 JB in SC

486 Glenn Batterley

502 KII

563 Bi bop boop beep boop

Thanks again everyone! And fear not, there will be one more project using Zr in the near future. ;)

And the Drum Roll Please...

Wow, remarkable turnout, thank you so much for all the interest everyone!

OK, here is the list of winning entries. Please check your email shortly for the purchase link and be sure to check your spam filter if you see your name here and do not get an email:

41 kylekthompson

44 MGlista21

52 TyFlyer21

84 hrbrt

101 AndrewWarm

110 Fuzillade

148 Joe Chang

178 Zirc bandit 

191 Feel the Bern

209 bburns09

256 Eskerbillion 

264 Brock

324 JohnnieBlade

342 Fnjimmy

346 Ted Reyes

364 roberthrose

368 Sandy

387 rhart00

407 aggie

413 GiveMeZircOrGiveMeDeath

509 jonnyfishstix

519 Dave Sloman

564 Trick carey

479 Murpharoo 

Thanks again folks! :)

Zirconium P15 Sign Up Sale!

Hi Everyone,

It's downright chilly this morning here in Massachusetts! It's getting to be time to put away the shorts and break out the light jackets. I always hate to see the summer go but I do enjoy the fall, at least the early part, before that dreadful white stuff arrives. And I wouldn't even mind a short visit of the white stuff except it always wants to overstay it's welcome. 

Today I have some truly exotic P15 Prybabies to offer you. These are made of 702 Zirconium! I was recently offered a small piece of this material so I could not resist trying a few tools with it. We go from 1/4 inch Roid thickness back to 1/8 inch Summer Weight on these but they are still way cool... The strength appears to be just fine for a light duty tool but I would use some common sense before taking a hammer to it or a "cheater" bar.

Zirconium is described in the literature as having a high affinity for oxygen and man oh man, is that ever the truth! Titanium is hardly easy to work with either but this Zr stuff is just plain nasty to grind. It requires very slow speeds and that is why I am so grateful to have a good speed controller on my KMG grinder as I can get it down to a crawl. Pre-milling the large bevel before finish grinding is a must to avoid conflagration. The sparks from titanium are very flammable too but this Zr is downright hazardous. You have to keep an eagle eye on the dust and keep the dust collection bucket flooded with water. But, once you are past that delicate stage it's not so bad with the rest of the finishing steps.

Speaking of finishes, I had a little fun with these...Anyone could have made them dull black by simply heating with a torch and rubbing them with oil. I decided to try a variety of techniques though to see what else I could come up with. Don't ask me to repeat it because I'm not exactly sure at this point what all I did but there were multiple steps involved including heat, electricity, tumbling, blasting and hand rubbing to arrive at what I think are some very unusual and subtle looks ranging from rusty warm browns to light color tones.

The Zirconium P15 Prybabies will run $125 each plus shipping and this is a Sign Up Sale, so one entry per customer please! I have 24 of these.

The SUSale will begin at 2PM eastern time and end one hour later at 3PM at which point I will sort through the entries and then randomly draw the winners. Good luck and as always, thank you so much for stopping by!

Woohoo! Sign up phase is over and I will go through the entries and announce the winners of the drawing shortly. Thanks everyone! :)

Entrant List

Sign Up Sale Rules, Please Read!

 

P15 Raw Bar Roids!

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!

       


  

Titanium Chilly Beans!

Hi Folks,

Even though we've had some very warm days recently you can feel a little bit of fall in the air today. Birds are starting to gather in small flocks and the trees are covered in tired looking green leaves that are still only just thinking about changing. Hard to believe we are only three weeks away from what is usually peak leaf season. 

Thanks for the enthusiastic response for the T-Wrex pry bars! I don't know when I might make more of them but hopefully another batch will be in the cards somewhere down the road. That is, if the mill makes more of the thick 3V sheets....I bought up the last two sheets available for the T-Wrex and the forthcoming Mini Wedgies. And speaking of the Wedgies, I haven't started grinding them yet but I will try to get them started in a week or two.

Today I have a micro batch of special Chilly Bean beads done. These are the same large 1 inch diameter as the stainless ones but these are made of anodized titanium. They range from solid colors to multi colored finishes, no plain ones in this batch at all. They are pretty darned cool looking. :)

The ti Chilly Beans will run $85 each plus shipping. This is a one time run and the batch is quite small so one per customer on them please. The order link is below. Thanks for stopping by and hope everyone has a great weekend planned ahead!

Ti Chilly Beans are gone! Thanks so much and have a great weekend folks!

T-Wrex!

Hi Folks,

Perfect summer days right now here in the Northeast. I have been working my brains out, but not as much on tools as I would like...we just had some home renovations done this past week and so I have been prepping like mad for them. Practically the entire house was painted, furniture moved, etc. I'm exhausted now but at least the house is clean and has brand new carpet throughout. And I'm finally going to get some new home office furniture this coming Friday which will be great. 

Yup, the long awaited T-Wrex has finally arrived! These little beasties are tiny yet absolutely massive. The thickness is well over 1/4" and the steel is CPM 3V with a slightly lower Rockwell hardness and tempering optimized for toughness. 

The features include a large pry tip with nail notch, a 90 degree smaller secondary pry/screwdriver and a mini hammer or striking surface. A 1/4" hex/lanyard opening is also included as well as an alternate lanyard opening if you wanted to hang this tool on your over sized key ring or gear bag to form a T handle.

I have given this T-Wrex batch a really cool dark vintage finish and each one of them is hand rubbed and oiled. 3V is a tool steel so if you want to avoid surface rust keep them oiled or, be like me: abuse this tool relentlessly and embrace the patina. :)


I wish this batch was much larger but perhaps I will make another run at some point. At any rate, these will be one per customer and they will run $85 plus shipping. The link to order is right below, if sold out then the link will be gone.

Thanks for stopping by everyone and hope your Labor Day Weekend has been a great one!


T-Wrex is sold out, thank you so much everyone!

End of the Stainless Steel Roll Bars

Hi Folks,

Hope everyone is having a great summer! It's the hot and humid part of the summer here so a good time to get stuff done. And stuff has indeed been getting done.

The heavy duty T-Wrex pry tools I talked about months ago on the Toolbook have finally been sent to heat treat as have a batch of newly designed P15 Roid Prybabies. Those will be back in a week or two. Closely following those I have a big batch of special titanium Mini P15 Prybabies underway and I'm hoping to get the first ones finished soon. A few other special surprises are also in store so it's going to be one heck of a September and October ahead.

Today I have a small batch of stainless steel Roll Bars. These are leftover from the winter batch and there are just a few left. These are 303 stainless steel and it's doubtful I will be making any more of them at least in the foreseeable future so if you've been wanting one this is your big chance...

The stainless Roll Bars run $48 plus shipping and the order link is below. Thanks as always for stopping by and have a great week folks!


Stainless Roll Bars are gone, thank you so much folks!

Paypal Stuff Is Almost Fixed

Hey Everyone,

The earlier issues I was having with Paypal not letting me know about all my transactions the day that I received them appears to be 100% fixed. No more issues have come up in the past two sales.

That's the good news. The annoying news is that a whole bunch of people who ordered in the past two sales did not receive the usual notification email from paypal saying that the item had shipped. Also included in that email is the tracking number, naturally. So I have had dozens of people emailing me asking for tracking.

OK, I called paypal and they created a ticket for the problem. They have looked into it and are fixing it right now. This is triggering some delayed emails so you might get an email in the next day or two about the G6 Prybaby saying that it shipped. Just ignore it, as you probably already have the G6 in your hot little hands anyway. :)

Hopefully that straightens these minor issues out since I'd so much rather be grinding tools than looking up transactions and sending people emails....

..................Update............................

Speaking of grinding tools, I am well on the way now with the T-Wrex pry bars and they will be going out to heat treat in a day or two once they have gotten their final tumble. Also, I have been working for two days on the new P15 Prybabies. These are heavy duty, Roid thickness, and they are now fully prepped and ready to do the bevel grinds.

So, much to look forward to and I'm very busy here this week grinding tools. Have a great weekend folks!
    

Thanks,

Peter
   

Old Skool Kool

Hi Everyone,

It's shaping up to be a gorgeous early August week here in western Massachusetts. The temps are only going to be in the high 70's for the rest of the week which is really a bit cool for this time of year. I'm not complaining though, it will be good sleeping weather not to mention working weather!

Well, today I have a nice surprise for you. I actually started these little gems back in December of last year so that tells you how long some of these projects sit around before I can finally get my act together and get them moving. But this is how it is in a one man shop and when you have so many different projects underway. My natural inclination is to work on the most recent and therefore "exciting" ideas but of course I was equally excited when I cut these all those months ago. It's not always easy but I have to keep telling myself, "Focus Peter, focus!" :)

Anyway, today I have the great pleasure of offering the G6 Prybaby. These are made of titanium in the usual substantial 5/32 thickness (.160 for all you number wonks with calipers). You will note the old fashioned milled V notch and, and, and... making an appearance after many years of absence, the iconic rear screwdriver tip! If I make more of these in steel I will probably be going to the stronger new style V but not sure yet, this may be the only batch of this model that I make since I have so many other Prybaby designs and variations in the works.

This is a mid sized tool so at exactly 3 inches long it's slightly smaller than the old G5 Prybaby and a good bit smaller than the P10 and P13 models. Because of the reduced size I made the wrench openings with just five sizes so they range from 1/4-1/2".

After much debate I decided to depart from all the color anodizing I've been doing lately. Partly because I have a lot of other anodized things planned but also I know there are a lot of people out there who love titanium and want to be able to carry and use the tools instead of relegating them to the status of shelf queen. So for those folks this is going to be a terrific lightweight user tool. And also it gives the people who like to modify their stuff a nice blank canvas on which to play. In keeping with that idea I decided not to sand and tumble these to death but rather left some small surface irregularities and minor marks. Like I said, pure USERS all the way!

The G6 Prybabies will run $70 plus shipping and the link to purchase is below. The batch is not large so it will be a one per customer sale please. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all enjoy these great tools as much as I enjoyed making them.

G6 Prybabies are gone for now! Thanks very much everyone. :)

A Zombie Christmas in August!

Hi Folks,

Well, it's hard to believe it's August already. How the heck does it happen? Somehow these summer days have been slipping by at a very rapid pace and they're showing no signs of slowing down either.

Well, I had originally planned to do this particular sale in July because to me a "Zombie Christmas in July" just sounds a little more like something the Undead could really get into. But somehow I ran out of days so I guess all those zombies will just have to make due with a later date.

These Five Flute beads are super nice. They have a bit of a semi matte sheen to them and a wonderful deep red anodizing. I believe it is Type II anodizing simply because my source doesn't offer Type III in red. However I think they are more than durable enough as they are now. I have chosen the Zombie/Undead/Toxic/Nightmare or whatever you wish to call it, green and black cord and the combination is very dramatic indeed. Perfect for those who wish to spend their evenings staggering across lawns and eating brains. :)

The Zombie Red 5 Flute beads will run $30 plus shipping and the batch is not very large so I will make this a two per customer limit please so that more folks get a chance to snag one. Perhaps more can be made down the road but right now I'm just not sure when....anyway, thank you AS ALWAYS for stopping by and stay cool this month!


Zombie Reds are gone, thank you so much everyone!

Wheelman Winners!

Wow, once again I am amazed at the great turn out! Thank you so much for your interest. :)

OK, here is the list and I will be sending out emails shortly:



Thanks again folks, really appreciate it and have a great week!

Fancy Wheelman Sign Up Sale

Hi Everyone,

Well, the heat and humidity has finally found us this week. That's OK though, I'd still take this weather any day over the freezing cold of winter. But it's a good week to stay down in the cool basement shop and get some projects moving.

Today I have a few fancy Wheelmen available. It has been a while since I have done up any tools with the old style patterning and I'd like to get back to doing a bit more of it. My patterning equipment has been out of commission for some time and although it is not 100% back in business I'm slowly getting there. I still have a bunch of stuff to rebuild and am always on the lookout for new finishing methods too...patterns below include Coral Reef, Reverse Coral Reef, Jungle Stripes and Bubbles. 


Since there are only 14 of these tools we will do this as a Sign Up Sale. Please remember that it's a strict one entry per person limit and any duplicates will be discarded. Winning entrants can choose which tool they want or leave it up to me. They are all nice though so I think everyone will be happy. :)

The Fancy Wheelmen will run $85 plus shipping and the link to sign up is below. The Sign Up period will run until 12 Noon Eastern time. After that I will shut down the sign up, draw the winners by random number and send out emails to them shortly afterwards. Please make sure your email is valid or I will have no way to contact you. And please do check your email as well as the winner list so you don't miss the purchase link. 

The Sign Up period is over, thanks so much to everyone who participated! I will post the list of winners shortly.


List of Entrants

Sign Up Sale Rules

Reminders and Info

Hi Folks,

Just a friendly reminder that I have all sorts of goodies coming up over the next several weeks. Working frantically on them right now...probably no sale today however as it is a family holiday.

With that in mind, please help me out and ensure you get your stuff in a timely manner by making sure that your Paypal addresses are up to date. I had to chase a few folks down recently for bad zip codes, old addresses, etc...

Also, lately Paypal has been having a bit of trouble. On the last two big sales I had orders suddenly appear two days afterwards. These were orders that were made during the time the sale was open but for some reason were lost in the system. Even though I reloaded the Paypal Payments Received list many times while making mailing labels and again a day later these orders never showed up. Finally, a week or two later I got emails from folks saying they never got their item, so I went back and sure enough, NOW those orders are there in the list. It's a bit frustrating to get through the whole sale and get everything packaged up only to find out that some orders got missed because of weird internal issues at Paypal. Luckily I had a few extra tools and was able to fulfill the lost orders.

So, with that in mind, be aware that after a sale is over I will be making mailing labels and doing up the packages. Usually I am done in anywhere from 4-8 hours. When I create the label you will receive an email from Paypal with tracking. If you do not receive an email confirmation within 24-48 hours (give them time just in case the system is backed up) please drop me a note and make sure that I got the order.

I'll be going easy for the next sale or two with a couple of small volume SUSales just to make sure paypal has their act together. ;)

Thanks again everyone and hope you all have a great weekend!

   

Wheelman Key Fobs

Hi Everyone,

It's a warm summer week here in the hills of Western MA. I don't dare complain too much about heat though because I'd always rather see it hot than what we go through at the opposite time of year.

Projects are humming along nicely. Once the decks are cleared of the current offering I will be turning my attention to finishing those T Wrex tools and sending them off to heat treat later this week. Then I'll start grinding the Mini Wedgies after that. SEVERAL totally unexpected little surprises came up last week so stay tuned for more info on those, but I can tell you right now that there's going to be a LOT of happy Atwoodites later this summer if I can get all these done. Hint, one's a metal that begins with T and another that begins with a letter that's later in the alphabet. ;)

So today I finally have the Wheelman Bike Tools finished. This is a minimalist version of the old model. While I liked the originals very much, I felt they were quite huge and heavy. Plus, the dual over and under bits were a little too much for the O-rings to handle. So, I went back to drawing board and came up with something a bit simpler.

The Wheelman tools are designed to ride on the keys as a key fob. They feature a 15mm axle wrench, all three common spoke wrench sizes, a cap lifter, a 1/4 hex opening, a tire lever/pry tip and a lanyard or key ring attachment point. In addition, I have given these aggressive side grips. The material is .160 (5/32) titanium and they measure 3.75 inches long by 1 inch wide at the widest end so they are fairly substantial in size.

This first batch is all titanium and as usual with my ti batches the colors vary widely from solids to color fades. There a ton of variations here. Another much bigger batch in steel will be coming later this summer or early fall once I get my lazy butt in gear and start grinding them.

The Wheelman tools will run $70 plus shipping. It's a one per customer sale for this run please and the order link is below. Thanks for stopping in, and also for your endless patience and enthusiasm for my little creations!

Wheelmen are gone for now, thank you everyone!

 

  

 

Winner List

Thanks for the great turnout everyone! Here is the list of winners and emails are going out to them now. And a donation for $540 has already been made to Fisher House Foundation. Happy 4th to you all and thanks again to the military service members and their families. :)



Thanks again!

Thank You Military Families!

Happy Independence Day Everyone!

Today I thought I might offer up a little thank you to the men and women who serve in our armed forces and their families. We sure do appreciate their hard work and sacrifice.

To mark the day and honor them I have made just 6 red, white and blue keyfobs using anodized titanium, white Delrin and red anodized aluminum five flute Lanslide beads. This will be a Sign Up Sale and will run for one hour, from 12 Noon eastern time to 1PM eastern time today. Afterwards I will pick the 6 winners by random number and send them the sales link.

One entry per person please! It's been a while since I did one of these so if you haven't entered a Sign Up Sale before please take time to read the rules. 

These special fobs will run $95 each shipped and all proceeds are going to be donated to Fisher House Foundation whose vital work supports our wounded veterans and their visiting families. They make us proud and we can't thank them enough.

SUSale is over. Thank you so much everyone! I'm sure the Fisher House Foundation will be delighted for your support as well. I will post the list of winners in a few minutes and send emails. Thanks again and have a great weekend. :)  


SUSale Rules: Please Read!

SUSale Entrants List

FunnyBones

Hi Folks and Happy Independence Day Weekend!

Man, I simply can't believe it's July already. I have a funny feeling that this summer is going to fly by in a flash... It's a little gloomy and humid here today but we're supposed to have great sunny weather for the holiday weekend.

Things continue to progress nicely in the shop this week. My cleanup and reorganization efforts are paying off hugely already and it's making a big difference. Now to turn my attention more intently towards production.

Speaking of production, the Wheelman bike tools are coming along very well and I should finally be ready for a sale sometime in the next week. The T-Wrex tools just need some minor grinds and cleanup and they will be ready to go out the door to heat treat, figure two days of solid work left on them. The 3V Mini Wedgies in the same thick stock are started and will be next in line for grinding, followed by the Semi Roid P15 Prybabies. Now that I have everything more organized I can see all the other projects lined up too and I can tell you there is much grinding in my future. :)

Today I have the new FunnyBones done. These are made of my usual 5/32 (.160) CPM 154 steel and they are quite similar to the original design. I made some small tweaks such as changing the edge grips, replacing the old metric set with the same odd number set 5-15mm from the metric Atwrench project, and the cap lifter is now round instead of wrenchy. All in all a very simple but solid tool and a handy one for your pocket, toolbox or car.

FunnyBones will run $65 plus shipping and the link to purchase is below. It's a small batch so one per customer on them please. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a marvelous and relaxing 4th of July weekend ahead!

FunnyBones are gone for now, thanks again everyone!

Black Delrin 5 Flutes

Hi Folks,

It's another lovely Friday here in western MA. We're having a string of terrific weather lately and it looks like the pleasant temps will continue for the next week at least.

I've been quite busy in the shop this past week and am almost done with my cleanup and reorganization. One of the biggest messes was the older sandblast cabinet system and that's much better now that I have the leaks fixed and put it on a mobile cart so I can move it around and clean under it. I also installed an industrial air hose reel so I can get stray hoses off the floor and stop tripping over them. These changes were long overdue! Little by little these kind of small improvements will make it a lot more pleasant and healthier work environment.

I've also been busy on developing designs and have oodles of new ideas drawn up. I think you will really like some of the stuff coming up this summer and fall...for instance: the P15 Prybaby, a new 3v steel Wedgie design and a reprise of one of the older captive bit designs.

People keep asking about rulers. I have not gone any further on the 3 inch ruler project. I am not sure it will happen this year or not due to the tremendous amount of work and expense that the R25 project ended up taking, far more than I had originally thought and frankly a ridiculous amount of energy spent for such a tiny tool. If I can get a handle on those factors maybe a 3 inch version will be forthcoming but for now it is on the back burner.

I still haven't started grinding the T-Wrex tools beyond a first pass on the edges and an initial tumble but they are on deck for bevel grinding and finishing before they get sent out for heat treat. Mini FunnyBones are very close to a final finish and coming up next, and hopefully to be followed shortly thereafter by the ti Wheelman.

Today I have the Black Delrin 5 Flute Lanslide batch completed. These make a nice companion to the White Delrin Lanslides and once again, are featherlight and quite tough. They will run $25 each plus shipping and no limit on quantity. After these are gone I think I will be moving on from beads for a while and concentrating on tools so this is probably it for at least a couple of months...as usual, order link is below and thanks so much everyone for stopping by!

Black Delrin are gone, thanks again folks and have a terrific weekend!