A Vegetable Cutting Tool From Trash

This is a simple vegetable cutting / slicing tool made with items collected from trash. Please watch the video to see how it cuts potato into very thin spiral slices

The step-by-step instructable will guide you on how to make one with easily available trash materials at home

The following are the materials needed for making this vegetable cutting tool

• A broken hack saw blade : We will use one portion of this discarded hacksaw blade to make the cutting knife
• A broken handle of Screw Driver : This screw driver handle is broken and discarded as trash. We will use it to make the handle of the vegetable cutting tool
• 3 mm dia, 25 mm long screw recovered from a broken down electrical appliance : This will be used as handle for the cutting blade for rotating.
• 6 mm dia 100 mm long bolt : This bolt was a leftover from some work at home. We will use this bolt to hold the vegetable piece for cutting

• A Dremel Rotary tool with multi-vise attachment and necessary metal grinding bits
• A Carborundum stone
• A Bit of sand paper
• M-Seal, a fast curing epoxy compound
• Araldite Epoxy adhesive
• Hand gloves for safety

First, the open end of 6 mm dia bolt needs to be sharpened

• Remove the nut from bolt and hold the bolt with gloved hand
• Using a metal grinding bit with the Dremel rotary tool, sharpen the open end of the bolt for a length of about 10 mm. The dremel tool is attached with the work bench using Dremel Multi-vise.
• The sharpened end on the bolt with rotary tool may not be in proper shape. Use the carborundum stone to finely sharpen the bolt end

Once the bolt is sharpened, we need to fix this bolt with the broken screw driver handle

• Mix equal parts of resin base and hardener of M-seal epoxy compound.
• Fix the bolt with screw driver handle using the mixed epoxy compound
• Allow the epoxy compound to cure for about 24 hours for maximum strength.

You can use sugru also in place of M-seal

There are two 4 mm dia holes on both ends of the hacksaw blade for fixing with the frame. we will use this hole at one end of the broken piece to fix the handle for rotating the blade. The 3 mm dia screw recovered from an old electrical appliance perfectly fits the hole. We can use two nuts on both sides of the blade to hold the screw in place.

But before that we need to clean, remove the rust and sharpen the half portion of hacksaw blade.

• Using sand paper, rub on the sides of hacksaw blade and remove rust
• Sharpen the plain edge (not the teethed edge) with Dremel rotary tool using metal grinding bit
• You can also use the carborundum stone to sharpen the blade

After sharpening, I tested the blade by cutting a tomato and it works perfect.

The hacksaw blade piece was a bit longer. So , I reduced it to about 10 cms by breaking at the red line shown in the first picture. Now I have to drill a hole at one end of the blade so that it will rotate over the threads of the 6 mm dia bolt and pass along the threads without slipping. I have marked the hole position but could not drill the hole with the equipment available with me. The hacksaw blade was very hard.

Instead I made a notch at one end using the Dremel tool with metal grinding bit. Then tied the open ends with copper foil tape. The opening is perfect and it rotates over the threaded bolt without any problem.

When I tried the blade with the bolt, the nuts holding the screw as handles came out repeatedly. So, I have applied Araldite epoxy emulsion on both the nuts on the screw as well over the copper foil tape on the other end where the notch was made. Allowed the epoxy resin to cure for about 24 hours.

You can see both the handle and blade assembly in the third picture and the completed tool in the last picture

Now our home-made vegetable cutting tool is finished, let us test with few vegetables to see how it works. First I have tried with peeled potatoes and it works perfect. This tool cuts the potato into very thin spirals. The deep-fried potato spirals are very crispy looks beautiful.

You can watch the video once again here to see this tool in action.

I have also tried this tool with onions and Radish and got thin slices of both, which you can see in the pictures above. The last three pictures are radish cut into spirals

This tool is not suitable for cutting tomatoes and hard vegetables like carrots. The rotating blade could not cut through the tomato skin. Also, the knife got stuck while cutting carrots. I had to split the carrot to remove it from the tool as well as to separate the knife from carrot.

Maintenance of the Vegetable cutting tool After every use

• Wash the blade and handle thoroughly in water to remove all stains of vegetable remains
• Clean with a cotton cloth and apply any cooking oil lightly on the bolt as well as on the blade.
• Sharpen the blade cutting edge from time to time with Carborundum stone

The diameter of the bolt to be used for holding the vegetable with handle should be between 4 to 6 mm in size. And the length of this bolt should not be more than 10 centimetres.

Fixing the nut (the same one on the bolt) over the notch on the cutting blade will help in proper movement of the blade along the threaded bolt. The nut should be as thin as possible and should be fixed on the same side as the rotating handle is protruding. I have tried fixing the nut but it fell off, so have to find a way to permanently fix the nut with the blade.

Have fun making this useful tool from trash...