Can opener

Sometime back I was struggling with finding a can opener that wasnt a PITA and lasted more than couple weeks. Yea the old SwingAway brand made in USA tended to be pretty good and last several years. But greed corrupts the best of products. Newer ones dont hold up. Also discovered modern cans are thinner metal with smaller end seam and flex when can opener is attached, then opener doesnt hold on.

Anyway after looking at antique dagger style openers like grandma had (you had to hammer the dagger part down into can, then rock it back and forth leaving very rough edge and metal filings down into food), decided to just get a Swiss Army knife with can opener blade. High quality blade and it just works. Slower than the twist kind of opener, but not when the twist kind openers have to be forever reclamped and they still skip lengths of the seam.

So no problem, keep that Swiss Army knife hung in kitchen work area. Simple wipe of blade after use. Done.

Got to thinking be nice to just have a single use opener with that kind opener blade at its end. And fat comfortable wood handle. Pocket knife casing as a handle isnt most comfortable though not horrible.

Nothing like that. You can find the those tiny P38 military openers or other various "emergency" blade openers that camper knives have had for years, either the curved beak type or imitations of the Victorinox Swiss Army knife angled knife type end. No dedicated single purpose type opener in this style. A truly useful single use tool type kitchen can opener would use the Swiss Army type blade only bit bigger so it could take bigger bites. And a comfortable handle.

I did see the credit card "Ollie-type" multi tools, basically credit card size piece of tempered stainless steel with holes and edges made to act as emergency type tools. Buck and half for China clone, so price is right. The can opener is in one corner. Had idea of making a handle attached above that edge/corner to give more leverage. No idea if it would be worth it or not. Rather have the high quality can opener blade out of a Swiss Army knife, but would hate dismantling an intact knife just to get that blade. Then would have to weld it to longer piece strap iron since blade is so short, and attach wood handle to that. All without taking temper out the actual blade.

However used Swiss Army knives now can go fairly cheap. Seems the TSA confiscates them in bulk from forgetful airline passengers, so others buy them at govt "surplus" auctions by the pound, and resell on ebay. Kinda floods market with lot more supply than demand and keeps prices fairly low, especially on those knives with fewer blades. Course nobody in right mind would carry around the versions with every useless blade option known to man. Those monster versions would pull your pants low with all the weight and bulk. plus large knife casing to house all those blades makes knife unwieldy to use.

Okie dokie, got the credit card multi-tool today ($1.25 total, shipped on a slow boat from China). Put a handle in it and it works pretty well, though might want to touch up the cutting edge of the can opener so it pierces can lid little easier. No hurry, next time I am sharpening knives on sander.

I was first thinking of wood handle, just slot in round bit wood and couple pins to hold it. Then saw this old spatula handle in my scrap pile of small bits and pieces. Actually use lot more small bits and pieces in my tinkering than big pieces of scrap.





Ok, first hosting site cropped the photos into uselessness. This site (see watermark) did it properly.