Versatile Ways to Repurpose a Takeout Utensil
Chop-Chop!
Turn your takeout utensils into useful tools
By Helen I. Driggs
(Originally Published by MJSA May 2024)
Chopsticks signal fun—dim sum, potstickers, sushi, and General Tso’s chicken immediately come to mind—but they can also be fashioned into very useful tools. I always have a handful of extras on hand, and my favorite is the bamboo kind with tapered tips, although I will always grab an extra packet of whatever is available when I stop for takeout. Here’s a quick tool-making idea to try next time you finish your favorite meal.
1. Mark a sawing line about 45 mm in from the tip of a chopstick.
2. Saw off the section you marked using a coarse sawblade—I used a #4—and save the rest of the stick for other uses. To use with a standard #30 Foredom handpiece, you might need to sand the nontapered end of the chopstick piece a bit for it to be easily inserted. Some chopsticks will fit and some won’t, so it’s a good idea to double-check the fit and make adjustments before proceeding.
3. Mark a line about 12 mm down from the tapered end of the sawed-off section. Make a second line marking the diameter as a sawing guide. Saw the chopstick from the tip down to the line, creating a slot much like a split mandrel.
4. Once the slot is sawed, you may use the chopstick as it is now, which is just like a split mandrel you would use with abrasive papers.
5. My favorite alternative way to use this chopstick mandrel is with a bit of steel wool. Insert the mandrel into your handpiece, pull a small amount of steel wool into the slot, and run the motor slowly to wind the steel wool around the chopstick tip.
6. I keep an old silverplate teaspoon in my bench to help me firmly wind and finesse the steel wool into a bud shape.
7. This mandrel also works with wool roving or cotton, which can then be charged with polishing compounds and used like other textile attachments.
8. Other materials to try with these handmade chopstick mandrels are strips of chamois, wool, felt, or nonwoven interfacing, which can all be used with various polishing or buffing compounds.
You may need to adjust the depth and/or diameter of the sawed slot, but it takes only about 10 minutes to make a custom chopstick mandrel like this, and you can recreate any manufactured textile attachment inexpensively. The best part is that the bamboo will not scratch or dent jewelry metal like a steel split mandrel might.