Tactical Fish 9

If I am counting correctly this will be a 9th episode of my Tactical Fish blog series :) I have checked that it is almost 4 years since first fish bottle openers were made. A lot of time, but it is easy to see that the design and craftsmanship improved during those years and it makes me happy :D
There will be a lot because there all all the Fishes I made in last months.

Next time I will show you the leather pouches I made for this bottle openers so stay tuned

Brass Tactical Fishes 8 with bronze beads

Matching set of brass Tactical Fish bottle openers with handmade bronze beads.
Making the beads was a lot of fun! That is why I have ordered some titanium and copper tubes and planning to make also titanium and copper sets like these in the future. They just look much better with the lanyards :)

Tactical Fishes 7... and Top 40 Knife Blogs Award!

Pictures of the last finished Tactical Fish bottle openers. Stonewashed titanium, titanium with badlands finish and copper. All ready for action! ;)

Also I would like to announce that my blog awknives.blogspot.com was ranked in Top 40 Knife Websites and Blogs for Knifemakers by FeedSpot.com! I have not idea how it happened but it is extremely cool and motivates me to find more time to run this blog. I hope to finally finish some of the knifemaking tutorials I am working on for a long time.

Of course it is all thanks to you! Thank you! It makes me feel really really happy :)

Random stuff

It is time for the new post!
Below are some pictures of the random stuff I made lately with my brother
SAK scales, Pingo scales, Vault Openers, Tactical Fishes, logo earrings and so on... ;)

Also a picture made during stitching of the first ever leather wallet I made. I always wanted to make one. After a few months of using it is still works great! Vault Boy approves ;)

Tactical Fishes and anodization

It been a while...
In last months I made two banches of Tactical Fishes which I would like to show you. First set has my standard finish.

The second one is anodized. This year I made  huge step in anodization process. Found an etchant for titanium available in Europe which works great.
For comparison, first check my old anodized Tactical Fishes made in 2016. I always got very dull colors for the voltage above 40V (which is blue). Also I was not able to get clean green color.

New anodized fishes below. It took me very long time to learn that the only way to succeed in anodization is by the etching process. Now I am able to get really bright colors for the whole anodization scale and it feels great ;)

Copper Tactical Fishes

In december we made two Tactical Fish bottle openers. This time the material we used was 3mm thick copper. One of the fishes had a terrible accident during milling but thanks to that it probably looks even cooler :D What do you think about the mutated fish? ;)

Anodized Tactical Fishes with logo

I finally made Tactical Fishes with logo engraved. It was also an opportunity to check some new voltage anodization techniques. I made one green-violet(pink?) fish and one violet-blue. There are also standard dark blue and light blue anodized fishes.

Blue Tactical Fishes

Another progress in anodizing titanium with use of voltage. Two tactical fishes - beadblasted, stonewashed and anodized for blue color in 30V. It turned out that not a power supply, but a good quality, clean electrolyte is the most important thing to get good results with anodizing. 

After about two years of tests I think I finally know how to do this! :D

Tactical Fish Bottle Openers 2

Another set of my bottle openers is ready! As always, there are new experiments with finishing titanium such as hammering and different finish for the edges made with round cutting mill. Also, for the first time, I have use cooper. I just love the way how copper with a little bit of patina looks. I am going to use it also for SAK scales and for my folders. Hope you like it!