Window cutting tool

x-actoI was asked to provide more information about the window cutting tool I described in an earlier post. It’s absurdly easy to make. It’s just a No. 11 X-Acto blade shaped with a cut-off wheel. I also used needle files and a whetstone to sharpen the very tip. After using a pin vise and a drill bit, the window tool very cleanly enlarges the opening. I found the No. 11 blade made a window slit just the right width for the Enterprise-E.

It also makes a great scribing tool. I shaped another blade and reduced the width of the blade at the tip by sliding it along the whetstone. I think one could make different versions appropriate to whatever scale is needed.

Another tool that’s handy is a simple chisel made from a paper clip. I filed it until it’s the width of the window I want to cut. I could probably make other chisels exactly sized to a window from larger paper clips or nails.

x-acto-dremel

chisel

whetstone

Written by

Jennifer Petkus divides her time between writing Jane Austen-themed mysteries, creating websites for the dead, woodworking, aikido and building model starships. She has few credentials, having failed to graduate from the University of Texas with a journalism degree, but did manage to find employment at the Colorado Springs Sun newspaper as a cop reporter, copy editor and night city editor before the paper died in 1986. She has done little since. Her husband is the night editor at The Denver Post. Her best friend is a cop. She watched Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon live. She is the author of, Good Cop, Dead Cop: A Novel about the AfterNet. She’s writing the sequel, The Background Noise of Souls, and another AfterNet related story, Jane Austen’s Book Tour.

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