Titanium Wrunts

Hi Everyone,

Hope everyone is surviving all the weather calamities around the world. It's just relentlessly awful  lately, and in so many different places...tough year for so many people!

I've been steadily chipping away at all sorts of stuff this past week, but slower to finish things than I would like. I recently ran out of fine grinding belts and discovered that the one box that I thought was full turned out to contain some coarser grit belts that I am no longer using. Will be another week or two before Norton makes me the ones I need by special order. In the meantime I will try to continue to make progress on some of the other neglected projects over the coming weeks...As far as tools that needed cleanup grinding are concerned, I do have some more R37 Rulers in super thick 1/4" inch Krinkle ti coming up and those are well on their way to completion. Other tool projects will have to wait a week or so before work can resume...

Today I have the first wave of Wrunts finished. The Wrunts are redesigned for 2017 and these first ones are made of lightly textured Krinkle Titanium. Upcoming batches will be in two different steels and some will be metric, but this batch is entirely "SAE",  meaning American wrench sizes only. The wrench set includes sizes 1/4-1/2", and there is also an improved cap lifter and a stout pry tip. The material is almost 1/4" thick so they are quite beefy indeed and overall this tool feels far more robust than the older Wrunts I made years ago.

The new Wrunts are just a little bit longer (OAL is 2.8") than the originals so that I could get the geometry of the pry tip into a more manageable angle. Also, the thumb grip area features my old "tiki grind" shape which is not only very cool looking but also provides a welcome tactile feel and sure grip. I elected to keep the grinds simple on these so there is not much variation in that department. However, these are anodized in a very wide variety of colors, both solid colors and many types of color fades and color "splash" looks. There are some plain non ano ones too, available upon request, as well as a few lefties in the batch.

The Titanium Wrunt17s will run $65 plus shipping and the link to order is below. It's not a huge batch so it will be one per customer on them please. Thank you as always for stopping by, and I do hope everyone is staying safe and dry!


All gone for today, thank you so much everyone!

Steel Superbugs!

Hi Folks,

Hope you're having a great week. I have been working my brains out this past week on projects and before that took a few days off to enjoy a little bit of summer vacation. But I am back and working hard to get some stuff done.

Obviously things are a bit of a mess down South, to put it mildly, and by the looks of things it's about to get worse with hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida. Thoughts, prayers and love are with our friends in the southern states this week! As a small contribution I am setting aside some funds today for the Food Bank of Houston...could be doing the same next week for Miami. :(

Well, there is a lot of stuff in play at the moment. It's been a crazy hive of activity here as I move projects along and a few are even hitting the finish line. Finally! Steel Wrunts are about to receive their final grinds, and titanium Wrunts are in the tumblers right now before getting some ano lovin'...I have a new wroidy spinning steel tool in progress called the Juggernaut and those are heading for the tumblers next before their final touches, and then they will be headed to heat treat. The next two waves of ti rulers are in the beginning stages of work, still a few weeks away on those.

Today I have most of the steel Superbug17s ready to go. I say "most" because these darn things gave me fits! It seems that when I applied the name stamp I had repositioned the tools in the stamp press in a different way than normal. When stamping I failed to notice that a small burr on the anvil was imprinting into the back side of the tool on every hammer strike. I never noticed a thing until the final polish tumbling step after heat treat when a mysterious mark appeared on the back side. Grrrrrrrr. Luckily I was able to sort them out and most of the tools turned out to be perfectly acceptable although you might spot a faint shadow mark in certain lights. The remaining pieces that had actual dents had to be sanded down and refinished over the past several days, and so the batch has now been pretty much rescued. This past week just underscores how something can go wrong anywhere in the making process and getting to the finish line is always a perpetual balancing act. 

The CPM 154 Steel Superbug17 offers a cool update to the old Superbug series. They are just shy of 3 inches long and the material is nearly 3/16" thick. I have given them a more effective screwdriver/XL pry tip/wrench/cap lifter arrangement for the nose. They have a cool new curved, ergonomic middle section, plus my usual captive bit system and a rear pry tip with Area 51 style grinds. The batch is quite uniform so there are no grind variations on these and no decorative stamps at all on this batch. There are a few lefties though...     

The Superbug 17s will run $70 plus shipping and it's a one per customer sale on them please...if you need more than one just drop me a line as I do have more of these on the way over the next few days as I continue to finish them up....stay safe everyone, especially you folks who are in the path of the storms, and thanks so much for dropping by today.

Superbugs are gone for today, thank you!