Broken ice chopper? Not to worry, I have a stick welder

This was my first project of the new year. Our ice chopper blade bent in its plastic casing, and it was pretty much useless following that. So today I cut the blade out of the handle, cut a slot into some rebar, stuck it all together, and now we have a functional ice chopper once again! Here is a video of my escapades I put together:



Again I am not a professional video editor but these are fun to do. The old handle from the chopper will be cut and used as a replacement shovel handle when needed. Happy new year folks!

Haha - thought from the title you were going to use the welder to de-ice!  :>)

Nice job!

Nice fix!

I definitely would have found a way to salvage that hardened steel chopping head.

I'm not sure rebar would be my first choice -- kinda bendy and heavy. But you use what you have at hand, and that's a win. And perfect if you have kids: when they get quarrelsome, put them to work.

Side note: there may  be a BB relevant to this, if you're collecting.

Phil Gardener wrote:Haha - thought from the title you were going to use the welder to de-ice!  :>)

Nice job!

Hey you do what you can with what you have! It would be a rather high-energy way to do it but it would work lol. On real cold nights when I'm messing around welding I'll warm my hands up by holding them close to something freshly welded...not quite the same as a campfire but it does the job.

Nice fix!

I definitely would have found a way to salvage that hardened steel chopping head.

I'm not sure rebar would be my first choice -- kinda bendy and heavy. But you use what you have at hand, and that's a win. And perfect if you have kids: when they get quarrelsome, put them to work.

Side note: there may  be a BB relevant to this, if you're collecting

I think if it wasn't reused in a chopper it would probably be in some sort of splitter.

Now that I took a closer look at the rod, I'm not sure it's rebar. It's a long rod with threaded ends. No idea what it was previously used for. As for weight, it surprisingly weighs about the same or less as the old plastic chopper! I'll try the scale to actually see if there's a difference.

Okay I weighed and the new one is 1.1lbs heavier than the old one. Not bad. Now to just add a little handle to make it easier to grip up top.

The handle has been added. I used a cut off from my soon to be kindling cracker. Pretty proud overall!