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In the Wednesday edition of The New York Times, the newspaper featured a bottle opener from Areaware (areaware.com) that is made from piece of wood, two magnets and a bent framing nail.
Read the article here and see a photo of the thing.
It’s pretty clever (especially the magnets). But today I challenged the magazine staff to do better. And now I’m challenging you in a new contest. Build a bottle opener using shop supplies that will make a woodworker smile. Take a photo of your entry and e-mail it to me at chris.schwarz@fwmedia.com along with your name and e-mail (that’s very important so we can contact you if you win). Do this by 5 p.m. EST on Friday, Nov. 12, 2010.
The winner (as determined by our editors, who probably have been drinking) will win $100 of merchandise from the WoodworkersBookshop.com. We just added 500 new products to the store, so there is lots of great stuff to choose from.
To get your juices flowing, we shot this video of the editors showing off the bottle openers they made today. Check it out and let us know which editor made the best opener.
— Christopher Schwarz
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
![How to Shop for a Lathe [Video]](http://www.popularwoodworking.com/wp-content/uploads/bfi_thumb/dummy-transparent-olcy6s63it1p9yp7uhusjas7c8kahafrhg9su7q9i0.png)
How about $75 for a bottle opener made from a broken major league baseball bat? Check it out on Amazon.
I’m glad to see an IPA was used in this exercise. Speaking of IPA’s (and being from the west coast), you need to try Stone Ipa. 🙂 best EVER.
Brian
Seattle, WA
I just read the New York Times article and notice that they were selling the openers for 20 bucks a pop! All the things I’ve used to open a bottle, I could have marketed to some rich yuppies and made a fortune! Paul
That was great and a lot of fun to watch. And best of all it is great to see people enjoying a flavorful IPA.
At last count I have at least 637 different objects in my shop that all double as a bottle opener. Now you want me to make one thing that opens bottles, and only opens bottles? I’ll lose the damn thing as soon as it’s done and end up using my wedding ring like I always do.
Nick
P.S. This website is awesome. As I typed this comment, the fields for Name, E-mail, and Home Page kept moving over and back one character space. Made me think I was having a stroke. Or not enough coffee.
Was this a Friday afternoon project or Monday morning?
I know you are not responsible for the maker. I guess the economy is doing a lot better in New York, and nobody needs a job to build bottle openers. Give me a break!
I want to work for you guys too…..
Great challenge! I was supposed to help my daughter build a wooden pyramid this weekend. I guess she’ll have to do it the old fashioned way (with heavy stones and indentured servants) since I’ll be "innovating" in the shop. Megan, offset the washer location and elongate the block just a bit and you shall achieve nirvana via leverage. Chris, some neighbors of mine have a bottle opener on their kitchen door that is similar with respect to the mechanics and the position of the bottle. I can’t get the hang of it and invariably leave the door covered in beer spray. It’s like a parlor trick except that it’s kind of pitiful.
Stay thirsty, Todd
Good God, do I want to work there. Seriously.
You now know the price of useless beat up European molding planes is going to skyrocket. Did you just do this so you can dump your whole collection on eBay for a mint?
Yours might have worked Megan if there was better leverage on that block. But then you would have lost the chicness of the square block.
OK – I wanna come work for you guys!
Lucy ought to be ashamed of you! Tonight is the finale of Project Runway – where’s your tie-in?! this bottle opener contest should have involved a $2 budget, 5 minutes in the hardware store and 45 minutes of construction time. Of course, I’d have been sent home for abject failure…so I should shut up.