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It’s a good thing that I keep a change of clothes at work. And that I don’t wear leopard-print underwear.
OK, let’s back up a minute.
This morning I’m finishing up work on the next I Can Do That project, and it requires about 1,000 bamboo skewers that are cut to 8-1/4″ long. That 1,000 is not a typo.
We try to obey “the rules” of the I Can Do That column when we build these projects , the tools and materials must come from a home center. And so I wanted to find a way to cut these skewers using the tools in the I Can Do That tool kit. There is no band saw. Only a chop saw and a handsaw.
So I bound together 100 of the skewers tightly with blue tape and marked on the tape where I needed to cut the bunch. I set a stop on the miter saw and began the cut slowly. About three skewers later the entire bunch exploded, and I was glad that I’d visited the Little Editor’s Room before beginning the operation.
So I took a bundle out to Senior Editor Glen D. Huey and asked him how he’d cut them.
“With a handsaw , hand tool boy,” he said, cackling.
Then he said he’d do it with a band saw, which was my first choice as well. So I bound up another 100 skewers in tape and made the cut on the band saw with no problem.
Looks like we’ll be recommending the readers use snips or a handsaw to trim these skewers , perhaps while watching Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage.”
Oh, and about that leopard-print underwear comment above: My grandmother always said you should wear undergarments that would look fine in the emergency room when they cut your clothes off , a rule that my mother scandalously violated in her youth with hilarious consequence.
– Christopher Schwarz
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Jon,
That’s the way I did it — cut through the tape line. No joy.
Chris
How about bundling the bamboo and cutting THROUGH the tape, (keeping the ends contained on both sides of the cut line)?
Which is the scandal?
Mom’s undergarment or that you KNOW this?
1,000 skewers?! That’s a lot of drawboring! 😉