Hey guys! I found a quick hack that seems to be working fine. I have re-purposed an old trimmer as an automatic quilling tool. While it is fun to use the good old quilling needle, this one might be handy when you are working on large projects that involve dozens of coils.

Step 1: Get the Required Stuff

1. old Trimmer - every trimmer has a motor in it. That should be working. everything else is secondary. It's fine if the blades are old or battery doesn't last long. All we need is a motor that runs when switched on.

2. A plastic or wooden quilling needle.(or a used ball point pen refill , or a ear cue tip plastic) We will cut the head of it and find a way to plug it in the motor's shaft. So

3. knife - to cut the platic needle, refill. cue tip

4. screwdriver - to assemble/disassemble the trimmer.

5. an adhesive depending on the material. a general purpose adhesive for craftwork should do.

6. Beverage of your choice :) I like indian chai.

Step 2: Find the Rotating Shaft of the Motor

A trimmer has 3 major components:

1. blade

2. motor

3. battery.

Our aim in this step is to find the shaft of the motor. The disassembly steps will vary across manufacturer, but will mostly be in this order. Unscrew the major screws that hold the trimmer together. Remove the blade from the top. The blade of the trimmer might be held by a clamp rather than a screw. Once you can see the rotating part of the trimmer, you are almost there. If you find that the shaft is a little offset, then that is something plugged onto the main shaft of the motor. Remove the offset shaft and you should see a tiny bar of the motor. On switching the trimmer on you will notice (on paying very close attention ) that this is rotating. The next step is simply plugging in the the quilling needle tip.

Step 3: Prep the Quilling Needle Tip

I used a solid plastic quilling needle and chopped off the top of it. I have seen videos/instructions on the Internet on making a quilling needle with a pen refill/ ear cue tip. That's a clever idea. It's fairly simple to do as well. All you need to do is slit one end of the cue tip. Since I used spare plastic quillling needle, I didn't have to do that. I had got them for INR - Rs10( or 0.15 cents) per piece.

After cutting the base, I had to make a hole at the bottom where the motor would fit in. I did this using the screw driver itself.

My quilling needle tip was ready.

Next step?

Step 4: Fit the The Needle Tip to the Motor

Before permanently fixing the the needle to the motor using adhesive, just check if the needle rotates fine. I had to scrub off some plastic from the outer side to fit the needle properly.

No brainer - use the common adhesive to do so.

Step 5: Coils Ready

in just a few trials I got a hang of my newly made tool.

You can see how my work improved(from left to right).

All said and done, here's a catch. There are tools in the market that do this. they are cheap as well. When I had the idea of making this one for my girlfriend, I did a quick search to see if there was something like this. And yes there was. But that's not the point of making this. Then what's point of making this?? - only a DIYer will know. :)