Modelling > Tips, Tools & Techniques

Homemade Chopper

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Cliffy B:
Evening all, check out what I made this afternoon; a homemade Chopper!





Made it from some scrap wood and some hardware I got at Lowe's; total cost was about $5 and that included a Coke at the checkout counter  ;D

The base is a left over piece of a 1x8 and the handle is a scrap 1/4" thick piece of basswood.  The handle is hinged to the base with two 1" angle brackets (for furniture/shelving repair) with a 1/4" bolt with washers between the handle and the brackets and two nuts to keep them from backing off after repeated movement.  The bolt came from the "misc" parts bin in the garage, hence the patina, and should probably be hack sawed shorter but it doesn't really bother me.

The blade is a stock razor blade screwed to the handle with the smallest wood screws I could find that fit perfectly into the notches in the blades.  This way I can replace them with ease and when the holes wear out I'll either move the blade slightly or just make a new handle.  I cut a groove in the base to allow the blade to pass completely through the plastic with a hand saw.

For a straight edge I used a "reinforcing plate" again for furniture repair and screwed it to the base after squaring it up with the handle.

The handle was originally just a rectangle until I realized the back was hitting the base before the blade did so I did some trial and error shaping and viola, it works like a charm!

So there you have it, for about $5 and about 2 hours you can have your own chopper.  Its nothing fancy but it works just fine.

arkon:
nice! i was just thinkin about buildin something like this last nite!

Cliffy B:
If you do, I forgot to mention that you need to mount the blade at a slight angle (lower corner TOWARD the the hinge) so that it slices through the plastic instead of presses through all at once.  Slightly cleaner cuts that way and less of a chance for the cut piece to enter the 4th dimension.

ysi_maniac:
:icon_surprised: I thought you were building a helicopter in your garage :icon_ninja:

Frank3k:
I bet yours works better than the 10x as expensive commercial choppers. I don't think their blades are angled (at least not by much) so yours is even better.

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