Some factory-made tools are sold without handles, so you have to purchase them separately, or craftsmen make handles with their own hands. These can be hacksaw blades, files for wood and metal, reamers, etc. Sometimes the handle can simply break due to dilapidation or improper actions, for example, when hitting it with a hammer.
In some cases, you have to improvise and come up with a tool from scrap materials in order to finish the job on time or fix an unexpected breakdown. How to get out of the situation in such cases? After all, working without handles is not entirely convenient, productivity will be low and, most importantly, unsafe: you can inadvertently injure your fingers.
What can be adapted to the handle from the numerous objects and products around us? With varying degrees of success, you can choose many of them. But today we will focus on one option.
How to turn a door canopy into a handle
At first glance, such a metamorphosis may seem impossible, but let’s not succumb to this hasty decision: let’s try to dismantle the mortise door hinge, which is not at all difficult.We move the axial pin from its place using a steel rod of suitable diameter by hitting it from above with a hammer.
Then, grabbing the pin from below with the jaws of the pliers, pull it out completely.
We will have in our hands a frame plate (wing, card) with three hinges and a door plate with two. We put them together so that the hinges align and form a through channel. Then we select a bolt of suitable diameter, the length of which should exceed the height of our door canopy, with a thread at the end.
Hitting the head of the bolt, we immerse it in the through channel until the head rests against the end of the canopy plates.
We insert screws of suitable diameter into the outer holes of the wings and screw wing nuts onto them from the back side.
We buy a ready-made wooden handle or make it ourselves with a hole in the center, strengthening the seat with a tightly fitted aluminum cap with a hole in the middle. Screw the handle onto the thread of the bolt connecting the canopy plates until it stops.
Our homemade device based on a door hinge is completely ready for use for its intended purpose.
We take a hacksaw blade and insert loops between the cards at one end, and then clamp it tightly using wing nuts. The tool is securely secured in the handle holder and with the help of this combined design it is possible to saw thin boards and bars of wood.
Here is a needle file or a small file. We clamp the shank with our device and you can quite comfortably, without fear of injuring your fingers, begin turning the ends of wooden products and even make grooves and various recesses.
Our handle can even be used for a makeshift tool, such as coarse sandpaper wrapped around a piece of metal hacksaw blade. We also clamp this symbiosis into our holder between the hinge wings along the long side and you can use it instead of a file to process edges and create separate recesses on the edges of the workpiece.
Holder upgrade options
In principle, you can do without dismantling the mortise canopy. To do this, it is enough to place a wooden handle on a rigid plate. Then it can be clamped together with the tool from opposite sides of the canopy. In this case, most labor-intensive operations are eliminated, and a lot of time is saved.
Our temporary homemade product can stay with us for a long time, because it is quite functional and can be useful even in a carpentry workshop. To make it safer to use, you can round the corners of the plates using an emery wheel or just a metal file.
