Bulldog 3/8", PH ratchet. Impossible dream.

[scottg]

Well this is just now finished. Actually I still need to lacquer the wood.
Remember this ratchet on the far left? (thanks again Aaron)

Its not easy to find a 2 dollar ratchet!!  It was pretty chewed on the outside finish, but still worked fine.

  Plus a well beat rusted over PH driver with no handle of course,

             Equals this.

The impossible part came from the style I was trying to get.
I wanted a blued frame and snow white holly wood scales, polished selector and polished stainless rivets.
   I had to use cold blue, which everyone hates (mee too).
Because trying to hot blue would mean inlaying the scales later and never touching the metal with abrasive. Not likely in this life. PH scales are quite enough trouble to set just right as it is. Trying to do it all in advance, then taking them off and getting them back on perfect,  would be suicide.

  But bluing the steel with the wood in place meant getting a little on the snow white wood.
You have to blue and then flush with water, and go again and again to get it even.
What with doing it 27 times to get the color deep and pretty, something has to give.

   But its a nice fat hand filling stubby ratchet, got to give it that. :)
yours Scott

   

[rusty]

>I wanted a blued frame and snow white holly wood scales, polished selector and polished stainless rivets...

What, no gold plate?  (Sorry, had to zing you on that one ; P)

It came out really nice. The contrast makes it. The odd thing is, in the thumbnails , the handles look like ivory...(next project?)

> I still need to lacquer the wood.

Never seen holly used for a handle, or anything else for that matter, does it have to be laquered? Can it be oiled? or is it one of thise ill behaved woods that dries up and gets hairy?

When does production start?

[scottg]

Holly is used in inlay all the time. You have seen it a million times. Its not a big tree most times, so people don't use it for a grandfather clock.  But handle scales are do able.
Its very fine grain but not the hardest wood in the world. Still good.
It doesn't get hairy or weird, but will schmutz up even from finger oil if handled.
Oiling it would take the tone down about 3 colors.  Lacquer or poly will only take it down a notch and at least it'll stay there.

Ivory this big would be either illegal or ridiculously expensive, unless it was prehistoric or something. The prehistoric usually is shot with rust streaks and mold.

Production? You are looking at it. First and only.
  The designer doesn't usually get involved in factory production.
   yours Scott   

[Papaw]

More outstanding work, Scott!

[Branson]

Absolutely gorgeous!  I have a fondness for holly wood. 

[BRwrench]

Very nice work.  I really like it!

[keykeeper]

Just got back in from a long-weekend with the family and I find this on my screen....excellent work, Scott!!

I never thought that Penncraft would amount to much in this world, but you have transformed her into a work of art.....tool-art, yeah, that's it!!!

[Papaw]

I think Scott ought to join PHARTS! He is one of the earliest, and premier PHART artists  here.

[scottg]

Figured you'd get a kick out of it Aaron hehe

But Noel, I -am- the PHART!  ;D
  While there are a number just as good at doing it,  and few who are better at it,  (damn Wayne Anderson for one heh)
     they all learned it from me!

Over 25 years now, closer to 30. 

It all started when I found a broken 4" driver. This would have been in the 80's or late 70's maybe.
  It was on a shelf amongst a lot of other busted rusted junk in a back shed I was working out of.
  The handles were gone and the blade was bent, munged and snapped off short.
But I was on a job and I needed a scratch awl, bad. 
So I grabbed it, took 2 minutes at a grinder, sharpened the tip, and got my job done. I'd have used a broken ice pick at the time, but this was available. 
Later, I ended up with the thing in my box at home.  I was working for Doc Hall, the local real estate weasel, and he owed me a whole lot more money than 100 broken screwdrivers were worth, so I didn't bother to return it.
About 2 or three years later, I ran across it again.  It was kind of a perfect size.
I was refinishing furniture "on the spot' for local older women.  I would pack my sawhorse workbenches and do their furniture right on their own porches.
Typical suspicious old ladies, they didn't really want their family heirlooms out of their sight.  So I needed everything very portable to fit in my station wagon. No truck at that time. Poor mountain hippie.
   
 
I got to messing with the driver one day. I must have tried 4 or 5 different ways to inlay the handle slips, but nothing really worked until I figured out to press them in.  Press some, shave some, press, shave and like that.

   I ended up doing desert ironwood scales on that first one. A friend had given me 2 piece of it. I still have the one.
I reground the tip into a true birdcage awl (4 sharp sides) years later when I got good enough at grinding to do it.

I still have the awl to this day. I use it frequently.


This is the original phart tool.  Right here.
 

  Irwin was still selling new ones at the time. I doubt anyone else was repairing 3 dollar screwdrivers. Took a real sick kind of a nut.     
yours Scott