Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Early Prybaby®

When I first started making Prybabies® in the first year of my knifemaking career I was thinking of them as handy tools for my painting and wallpapering business. I needed something to open paint cans, remove electrical switchplates, pry picture hangers out of the wall and pop a beer after work. If someone had told me then that I'd still be making them today I'd have told him to stop sniffing paint fumes. :)

Some of the very first pieces were not intended to be keychain tools at all but rather pocket pieces. Through my exposure to the knife forums and my friendship with the Halperns at Halpern Titanium I discovered the material G10 which makes such nice handle slabs.

But I wanted more utility so I thought why not put a DMT sharpening stone on one side of the handle so you could sharpen your knife in the field and that way the sharpener would always be with you. It was a neat idea except that the folks at DMT got wind of it when I tried to order a bunch of stones without the little flip case that they come with. DMT wasn't happy that I wanted their product for this purpose and who can blame them I guess. They made it quite unpleasant so I gave up after the first batch of thirty.

Pics by Steven Roos.


3 comments:

Bush -- not related said...

Peter, loving the stroll through your collection and the bits of history (like this with the whetstone) are wonderful. Thanks for taking the time to set this up.

Anonymous said...

Wow! There are 30 of these out there somewhere!

Cool!

lauriek said...

Not entirely sure I can see the business sense in them stopping you doing this. You would have bought _loads_ of these things from them. I don't think they would have cannibalised any of their own sales, so they cut off their own nose to spite their face. Plonkers. I'd love one of these babies! :)