Monday, September 30, 2019

Titanium Wring Tools

Well Happy Autumn Everyone!

Fall is suddenly in full swing up here in New England. The leaves are changing everywhere, but the temps haven't been cold enough to give us much color yet. So the leaves are mostly brown and tired looking, but here and there you can spy a bright orange and red maple as you drive down the country roads.

I've been working steadily on numerous projects and have also come up with several new drawings recently. So all kinds of stuff will be coming, basically for the next several months and well into the new year.

Today I sat down to create a new sale page and discovered some mysterious website problems. After spending a couple of hours trying to get it straightened out we decided to try a work around for now. So hopefully the sale can work for today...the problem was in uploading image files and so my sale page today and my shopping cart won't have any images, but they should still work properly. At least I hope so, hehe!

Today I have something really cool for you. This is brand new version of a very old tool. Some of you might remember the original Ring Tools that I made many years ago. I decided to revive the concept but added some new twists.

These Wring Tools are made of a special new material. They are titanium, but the titanium I am using is upcycled Armor Plate. It's surplus material from the Department of Defense. I have no idea what the original purpose was, but I'm guessing it was probably from those V bottom shaped armored vehicles that you sometimes see in combat images. Or maybe it was for tanks or something...Anyway, this stuff is crazy TOUGH, and also nearly 1/4" thick. So these tools are a lot more robust than the original ring tool design which were maybe 1/8 or 5/32 thick at the most.

The reason I went with the 12 point wrench interior shape is that not only does it look super cool, but it does allow for a much more forgiving fit range than a plain circular ring shape would. There is leeway for several ring sizes in these.  In order to make the Wring size so that it will fit the broadest range of fingers possible, I settled on 13/16". If you have a full wrench set you can test that size right now and see how these will fit. The next closest size would be 3/4" (which you can also easily test with a wrench at home) but that is a little bit small for a lot of people. So I will skip 3/4" on this design for now. On the next Version Two of the Wring tools I have made a small number of 3/4" Wrings, and those will be available in a few weeks. But today I only have the 13/16 size which I am calling size M/L. The future 3/4" ones will be size Small.

The Wring tools feature a screwdriver/pry tip. The batch is fairly uniform and there are none with stamps. I elected to leave them with a plain finish as this grade of titanium does not anodize quite as brightly as the normal stuff usually does. The Wrings have gotten many hours of tumbling and then hand rubbed finishing to give them a soft buttery feel. There is a slight raw bar texture on them.

These first Wring Tools will run $50 each plus shipping and the link is below. I'll make it a limit of two per customer on them please. Thanks for stopping by today and hope you're all enjoying the last warm days of the year.

All gone for today, thank you so much!

     





 

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Six Flute Titanium Megas

Hi Everyone,

Well it's a lovely week here in Massachusetts. The mornings are a bit crisp now and it takes a few hours to burn off the dew on the lawn. We're trying to get out every day for a brisk walk while it's still shorts and t-shirt weather, but something tells me it won't be long until long sleeves become necessary. 

I've been busy this week moving existing projects forward and also fiddling with some new drawings. Taking some time off this summer has really paid off as some very interesting new ideas have been coming to mind. Hopefully at least some will pan out.

Today I have some titanium 6 Flute Mega beads done. These have a plain finish and are roughly half of the total batch. I will anodize the rest soon, but today it's just the plain ones. These have deeply milled flutes and narrow fins which make for a very grippy shape. The finish is buttery smooth. Great for zipper pulls and for making into lanyards for tools.

The 6 Flute Megas will run $30 plus shipping and the link is below. Thank you for dropping by today, and I hope your upcoming weekend is excellent!

All gone for now, thank you so much!






Thursday, September 05, 2019

Titanium MikroStiks

Hi Everyone,

I'm back!

Wow, what an amazing summer this has been. I still can't believe it's almost over though since time has flown by so fast....but here in the Northeast the air is starting to get a familiar early morning chill, the days are suddenly not as hot and we're losing precious daylight minutes at a rapid clip. We don't have any leaves showing color yet, but it's only a matter of time. Four short weeks from now we should be in peak foliage season.

Even though I've been quiet as a mouse for the past few weeks, work on projects has steadily continued. I've been quite busy the whole time grinding tools, creating new drawings, tumbling, sanding, anodizing tools and tying strings. The difference this summer compared to past ones is I've also been playing guitar, working out (Google the awesome little Pocket Monkii), gardening and cooking every single day, and going to several music events every week. I've even messed around with some acrylic paint and canvases. So my days have been somewhat mixed up, jam packed with both work and play, and we've super charged our social life this summer. Good times!

As I mentioned, the projects have been rolling along and I have a ton of stuff coming up this fall:

Steel Metric Mini Prybabies and new steel Atwrenches are both on the bench, still awaiting finish grinds and final decorations. But they are close to being sent out to heat treat.

A couple of older projects have been resurrected and are nearing completion, such as titanium TightWads, and a second small batch of rough cut steel tools has been rescued, although they are not Mini Shiners this time but rather a little tool called the Wrant that I never released.

I decided to revisit a very old design, the Ring Tool, and two completely new versions of that will be coming up in a rather novel new material. I'm finding these new Wring Tools to be highly addictive fiddle toys btw... A new small key fob design is coming, several long overdue batches of fluted beads, more kitchen magnets, a high quality kitchen clip design, zirconium Hangmen, an updated older tool in titanium, new Tiny Tims but with a twist and several other goodies.

Today I have a fancy little item, Titanium MikroStiks. These tiny 2.5 inch long tools are perfect for small and delicate poking, cleaning and prying tasks where a sharper pin tool would be too pointy and sharp. A versatile tool, it is excellent for fine renovations, small delicate repairs, cord and knot work or for pipe smokers looking to clean their pipe...these are heavily stamped with a wide variety and many combinations of images as usual, and most are contrast anodized with bright colors. There are also a few without anodizing for the vanilla lovers, just email me and I'm happy to hook you up.

I find that the MikroStiks pair well with any of my beads, and it's easy to tie a cord to them and use the bead as a sheath if you want to pocket carry these without poking yourself. They carry just fine on a key ring mixed in with your keys too though, especially Hangman style carry...also, you will note the center hole which provides for a tie in finger loop point for those who like to play with minimalist defensive tool ideas.

The Titanium MikroStiks will run $50 plus shipping and the link to purchase is just above the picture below. Thanks for dropping by today and I hope your summer has been super fun as well.

Sold out, thank you! There will be plain steel ones coming later this fall too...








Tie on a cord and any bead (you all have tons of beads I bet, haha!) and you have this nifty little carry option: