Thursday, September 18, 2008

DLC Debut

These were bead blasted before coating with DLC (Diamond Like Carbon) so they have a matte finish. This is my first try at having any of my stuff coated and I am more than pleased with the results. It is very hard and I am quite impressed. A razor blade skates right off it and leaves no scratch....amazing stuff. I think it's safe to say that we will be seeing a bunch of it coming up. I may do the next pieces over a bright stonewashed surface though so it will not be so matted out. Maybe some patterns... ;)

Twisted MSOPThing

Second piece in the series. I made this and the one below about two years ago. Neat stuff but two was kind of enough for the moment. Who knows though, maybe there will be a Twister tool at some point.

Medallion

I made this early on. I wanted a keyfob that would show off both the cool effects of carbon fiber and my patterning and anodizing on titanium. The piece is a bit beat up but you get the idea...

King Sumo

King of the Sumos. This giant was made of 3/16" thick S30v steel and is one of the largest knives I have made. It's hard to see in the photos but the thing is huge and weighty. Thick rubber cord wrap gives it a very secure grip indeed. Too much fun folks! :)


Twister!

This one was a blast to make. Massive 1/4" thick 3V steel, chisel ground blade and a twisted center on the handle. I love how it shows the plastic quality of the steel that's been heated to 1800 degrees or so.





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.


Wild Whistles

Three titanium whistles with wild anodizing jobs.



Match Stick

Alright, maybe not quite match stick thin but this was a one of a kind little titanium pry tool with the High Voltage pattern.


Woodgrain

I love it when the etch goes really deep. This is a Micro card knife made of Mike Norris random pattern stainless damascus with a long acid etch.

Group Shots




Nice bunch of pieces:

Misc Damascus Booger from 2005





Another Atwrench Variation

I did a bunch of different versions of these in the first batch. In the end I settled for the ones with Tiki Grinds and V notches as my favorite design.

Micro Cards Old and New

This was a neat one I did a few years ago. Notice the glow thingie... ;)



And then we have the newer version, The WildCard, with the last pic showing the difference in size between the two. These are coming this fall at some point. That reminds me, I need to get grinding!


CrawShot

Did you know that with a couple of pieces of surgical tubing and scrap of leather you can turn an Atwood Crawdaddy tool into a deadly anti varmint device? Hehe, actually the forks were so narrow that I could barely get a shot off with it but it was still some silly fun. :D



Monday, September 15, 2008

Buckle

Not sure what happened to this buckle but it was a collaboration between my friend John Moore and I. John is a long time buckle maker and he wanted to see what a damascus buckle would look like. It was kinda of a fun one of a kind project but I'm not too much of a belt buckle kind of guy. Or maybe it's the lack of extra utility that leaves me a little wanting with it. Nice steel though...

To the Pointy

Move Closer

Couple of Neat Pendants

I think these were done around 2006 but it could have been 2005. One shot is not the greatest but the other with the glow dot isn't too bad.




World's Smallest

Mike at Precious Metals and Diamonds had one of their jewelers make this little guy out of 14k for me a few years ago. It's pretty darned neat but I've never found a job small enough to use it on. :)

Drawings

Here are a few drawings from this year. It's fun to move elements around and see if anything shakes out. Sometimes it does as is the case with the tool that would eventually become known as the FunnyBone. You can see where I was playing around with names for it before settling on FunnyBone....



Other tools don't end up being made such as the Nessie or Kelpie. I did some later actual protos of Kelpies in which I shrunk the knife down to keychain size but it's still very much a design in progress.



This is a drawing for a new knife called The Fixer which will debut in Fall 2008...I really love this little utility tool. At 3.5 inches in length it's a nice size and the combined utility of the cutting edge and the handle wrenches make it one of my more interesting pieces I think.



Lastly, we see the continued evolution of elements of the SharkTooth model from Spring 2008 in the RingThing which is about to be released in September.

Welcome!

Howdy folks and welcome to the Atwood Knife and Tool Museum. Here you'll find all kinds of cool knives and tools that have been made over the years by Peter Atwood. Some are one offs, some are customs and some are from runs of all sizes. The idea here is to create a place strictly for showing past work. It seems like there is a need for an archive of material and I thought the blog format might be a good way to share some of it.

This will not be a sales site and no release announcements will be made here. Everything shown will be either old work or the more unique and one off type of things.

I might use customer's pictures at times that I have collected on the various forums. If anyone sees one of their pictures in a thread and objects to their usage here please just email me and I'm happy to either credit the person or take it down. In most cases I do not know who the owners are and so I apologize in advance if I do not properly credit all the images. I just see cool shots on the knife and tool forums sometimes and I save them off. Some of the shots you guys get are amazing. :)

BTW, this whole blog is: