Introduction: A Nail Bottle Opener With Some Design and Style

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About: DIY Addict, like to solve problems, do thing with my hands and find the cheap way around my needs.

Yet another bottle opener. I guess nobody was realling missin one, still I saw this picture whyle doing some researches for other projects and I was fassinated and tought... "Why not??".

So this is a simple project to make a knockoff of the AREAWARE (http://www.areaware.com) Nail bottle opener.
Looks like knockoffs of other stuff is getting to be my speciality. If you like the design and have the 22 bucks they charge for it I recomend you that you buy it from AREAWARE and support theyr work. Myself, still respecting the research and work for the design, I prefer to make my own: more fun, less money.

As you can see from the pictures there is nothing difficoult or strange, but it's a great and neat idea. Also it not far from some other designs I've seen here in instructables, just "nicer". It makes a nice and cheap gift project:  once you give it don't tell what it is right away, it's more fun ;-)

Step 1: TOOLS AND MATERIALS

Materials:
- a block of hard wood, mine was about 10cm, 2cm wide, 3cm high, but once you get the idea you can pick your size. of course the longer it is the more leverage you have and the easier it is to use (think of this in case you are making it for aged people)
- a long and sturdy nail, mine was about 10cm and I consider it to be somehow the minimal length. I needed 3 nail since I broke the other two while bending it...

Tools:
- carving tools (knife, saw, dremel, whatever will allow you to shape the wood)
- sandpaper (coarse and fine grained)
- drill (better have a pressdrill if you can)
- hammer
- vise
- metal pipe (not to big)
- caliber

Optional:
- linseed oil and beewax (recomended for a nice finish)

Step 2: STEP1:

Start by shaping the wood. Leave the "bottom" side compltelly FLAT, also leave the
front side flat. You can give the other 4 sides any shape you like and feel comfortable in your hand. I copied the shape of the original one quite a bit. You can use your fantasy here.

Start using the carving tools, then finish with the sand paper. Start with the coarse grained and the procede to the finer grain.

TIP: you could use 3 or 4 different grits, starting from the coarse one (low numbers) to the finer one (higher number). Also you can wet the wood with some wather and let it dry between one grit and the next finer one: Wather will pop splinters up allowing you to remove all off them resulting in a smoother finish.

Step 3: STEP2:

Time to figure out where and how to place the nail.
Start marking the center of the "front" side. This is where the nail will stick into.
Now, using real (beer) bottle, place the head of the nail right under the cap, line it with the block of wood (handle) and mark the point of the nail that reaches the signed center point.
You have just marked the point in the nail where the 90° bent will be.

Step 4: STEP3:

Bend the nail: place the nail in the vise, letting the point stick up outside of the vise. The point you just marked on the nail must be in between the sides of the vise, so that the bend will occur right over it.
Take the metal pipe and insert the nail inside it. Now using the pipe as a lever bend the nail 90°. Do it slowly and don't break the nail. I found that heating the nail makes it weak and eventually the nail will break... tooke me 3 nail to get it right.
You can use the hammer to make the bent a little sharper if you need.

Step 5: STEP4:

Before you make the hole in the wood check again the point you'll be drilling in like you did on step 2, since the bent tends not to occur exactly where you wanted it to be.
You whant to be sure that the head of the nail is right below the rim of the cap once all is assembled. Just to give you an idea, the average bottle cap is 7mm tall. You might wanna live 1mm of extra space but not more
Make a hole in the wood. This is where the press drill comes handy. You need to be sure that the hole is parallel to the flat side as much as possible.
Chose a drill bit that is exacly the size of the width of the nail or a little less (half a millimiter or a quarter of millimiter). If you hole is much smaller than the size of the nail you are likelly to end with a fractured wood handle (when you hammer the nail inside or afther a few months)

Step 6: STEP5:

Insert the nail: use the hammer to make sure that the bent part of the nail lais flat against the fron side. Take care not to break the wood or the nail...

Step 7: STEP6:

Optional - Finishing the wood. You might like to put a nice finish in the wood (expecially if it's a gift!) by putting some lineseed oil on the wood, may be two or tree times. Let it dry for a day and clean it with a rag before putting the next layer of linseed oil.
Afther the oil put some beewax, let it dry and clean/buff it with a rag/cloth.

Step 8: STEP7:

Test and use. Place the flat bottom side on the top of the cap. Place the head of the nail under the lip of the cap. Lift the nail pushing on the opposite side of the handle... VOILA' !!!

The caps come away so easilly and is almost intact. In my case I can also use the same cap to close the bottle if I don't finish it (usually happends when I have a beer and half... never have half a beer)