bay area dave wrote:
your question takes the cake for the wackiest "project" I have ever heard
anyone on
the Wreck muse about. You can't be serious! You are gonna screw around
I asked a good bit back for ideas on making a new handle for my machete. I
never did make anything out of wood. I just don't have the right tools to
cut something to fit the complex tang on this thing and have it come out
right.
Instead, I took my inspiration from some sword-making sites. I had some
12-gauge romex that was too short to be useful. I stripped the sheathing
off of it, and then stripped the insulation off of the wires within,
yielding three longish (10' maybe) bare copper wires. I clamped one end of
a wire in my bench vise, then walked out into the yard and wound the thing
very tightly and carefully around the tang. Repeated until I had wound
them all on, and then I soldered the loose end.
It's not quite as comfortable as the original plastic, but you wouldn't
believe what an *incredible* difference it made. The machete was
well-balanced before, but now it's as light and nimble as a butcher knife
even though it's more than three feet long. Having the extra weight in the
handle gives it a lot more oomph too. I can lop through 3" pine branches
with the thing in one swipe now.
So anyway, there's a thought for the OP's 60 knife handles. Get some copper
wire. Thinner gauge than the stuff I used. Probably 16 or smaller I'd
say. Wrap away. Dishwasher safe. There might be galvanic reaction
problems, and the stuff would tend to get greenish down in the cracks over
time (unless the dishwasher detergent eats that stuff off, which it
might...) but they would look sort of cool I think, and it would be a hell
of a lot easier than trying to manufacture plastic parts without the right
equipment.
I guess for food stuff you'd want to think about the copper alloy. Make
sure it isn't something that's mixed with arsenic or some damn thing.
Google away.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
Confirmed post number: 16782 Approximate word count: 503460
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/