Here at GondekEDC, we are always trying to make our products better. This could be stronger, more useful, more economical, or all of the above. Pushing ourselves to do these, we feel, makes us a better company and provide improved gear. This is exactly what we did with our V2 of the Executive.
The original Executive (V1 shown on the left) was a big first for us. It was the first pry we did that we hand-ground and finished. This allowed us to bypass the higher cost of CNC and utilize a more economical process. Because of this, we could price this tool in a much more appealing way to the community. It was a huge success and well-received but we wanted to do more and make it better.
We are huge fans of feedback and love to hear what people think (positive or negative). The negative comments, or constructive criticism, are really what we can use to make ourselves better. Some of the feedback we got on the V1 was the edges were not the most ergonomic and the "G" in the center was a failure point.
Taking these points we hit the drawing board for our V2. We tried all sorts of different designs and took the pry to places it probably shouldn't have gone (if anyone saw our wavy pry design you would know). What we ended up with was a V2 that had minor changes with a huge impact.
The first and most obvious is the new version of a mini. There is no doubt that the EDC pouch world is going crazy and sometimes a full-sized pry doesn't fit well. Personally, I carry a Ranger Wallet with me everywhere and I wanted another option. Behold the mini! All the same features, just about 3" in length...conveniently a perfect fit for our Ranger Wallet. The next biggest change was the removal of the nail puller at the end. In order to make the mini, we actually cut down the full size (that is how we ended up with the worry stones). To do this we needed the ends to be the same. Also, I actually rarely use the nail puller and often scrape stuff with my pry. To me, the flat end is more useful in the day-to-day.
Another big change was the removal of the "G". We had to
improve the strength of the pry. We back everything with a lifetime warranty so we put our best foot forward on every product to ensure it is going to last a lifetime. This also had a really cool side effect in that there is a bunch of room for anodizing design. We have gone crazy with some designs but also can go simple with an added anodized "G" to match the look of the V1. Keeps the design, but with a huge improvement in strength.
Last but not least, were the improvements to the ergonomics and finish. We went for rounder edges to decrease hot spots and we hand grind a small chamfer on all the edges to make it even nicer in the hand.
All in all a lot of small, but very effective improvements. What is even crazier is doing all these we were also able to improve our process and reduce the price by $10 (while still being made in the USA!). We absolutely love the new V2 Executives and hope you all do too. Let us know what you think in the comments or shoot us an email at info@gondekedc.com.