Stir Sticks

 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues...

It's been awhile since I posted, but a recent post in a rocketry page inspired me.

The original poster wanted to share how thrilled he was to discover a great re-application of something from the holiday season.

He shared a photo of a package of holiday appetizer sticks like the kind you might skewer a piece of cheese or olive or perhaps an hors d'oeuvres.


He says he uses them as stir sticks and applicators for his epoxy and that he couldn't be more pleased with the disposable plastic sticks.

This stirred a memory for me of my own quest for the best stir stick for my occasional epoxy needs.

Back in the 60s when my father would repair a drawer pull or fix a plastic knob from a radio set or something household, he would always fashion a small cradle or bowl out of tin foil. He would then squeeze an equal measure of each tube of epoxy (Resin  and then hardener) onto the tin foil, and after securing equal amounts, begin some brisk stirring with a flat tooth pick.  He preferred the flat to the rounded ones because they acted as a very small paddle, and he didn't have to worry about poking a hole in the tinfoil with the sharp pointed end of the round pick. 

I remembered all this as a grown man as I began buying my own epoxy , and started doing the same on wax paper. I found this superior, as I could flatten the paper and then squeegee every last drop of the mixed epoxy onto a tooth pick to apply.

But I soon found that I preferred using a popsicle stick.

Fortunately, since I had kids, it wasn't hard to come up with a used popsicle stick laying around in the kitchen or in a trash can in our house.

But I married this idea with those paper cups like the Dixie brand cups, again, to keep the epoxy along the bottom of one side of the tilted cup, and mix thoroughly.  The popsicle stick would work well, but leave a fillet in the inside corner of the cup that I could never get out without a toothpick once again.

I settled on those short, flat paper cups or favor cups that some restaurants allowed you to pump some condiment into.  Once mixed, the cup could be unfolded, flat, so that you could squeegee the epoxy and get every last drop out.

(And now that I think about it, the very first place that I ever experienced this type of paper cup was as a "nut cup" or "favor cup" in grade school when Valentine's Day candies were passed out in class.  Just big enough to hold a couple of candy hearts, a few M&Ms or peanuts.)

So, my recommendation is to steal... liberate some of those paper cups next time you're at Wendy's or Captain D's to use when you mix epoxy with a discarded popsicle stick.

This has been the Thrifty Rocketeer saying, "Reuse, Recycle... but hurry before the epoxy sets up!"

Comments

  1. Kirk G - The Thrifty RocketeerDecember 14, 2023 at 2:55 PM

    Another great suggestion for stir sticks and applicators: Use a pair of chop sticks... the perfect blend of paddle and long reach applicators for deep inside a body tube. And disposable too!

    ReplyDelete

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