Make a Butter Knife for Spreading Cold, Hard Butter

Hello Instructablers.

Here's how you can make a butter knife that can handle cold butter straight from the fridge without ripping up your bread or toast.

The original idea is not mine. I spotted it on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1070983896/th...

The project was super-successful, and for good reason; it's a work of pure ingeniousness.

Anyway, with a butter challenge in the offing, I couldn't resist having a crack at making my own. In the end it worked quite well. My fellow Instructablers will certainly be able to improve on the design, but I hope this will at least help inspire someone to have a go.

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The only material is some stainless steel. I used the housing of an old submersible bore pump. These things are designed to last so I know it will be good quality stainless steel. The steel is about 1mm thick - you would not want it thinner.

Of course you will also need some tools to cut it out, grind, drill and polish.

• Sharpie pen to mark out.
• For cutting I used a plasma cutter, but an angle grinder with cutting discs will be just as good.
• Grinding disc or bench grinder to clean up after cutting.
• Centre punch and hammer to locate holes.
• Drill with 2mm or 3mm drill bit.
• Flap disc and polishing wheels and polishing compound for finishing.

Use your sharpie to m ark out a nice butter knife shape. I traced around a bought one I found in a kitchen drawer.

Cut out the shape.

Grind the rough edges off, and adjust then shape until it looks approximately just right. As m steel came off a cylinder I also had to do some hammering at this stage to make it flat.

I used a larger drill bit to mark the line where I wanted the holes to go.

Just use a drill bit twice the size of the distance you want to mark. Hold the drill bit flat on the bench and drag the steel past it. A 4mm drill bit will leave a mark 2mm from the edge.

Use a centre punch to mark where you want the holes. I actually did mine one at a time to make sure the spacing looked okay.

If you look at the picture you will get the idea. I didn't do any measuring. I just did it by eye, and it turned out okay. I don't think it's a very exact science.

I used polishing wheels on my drill with polishing compound. The stainless steel quickly became bright and shiny.

I wish I had the time to make a beautiful handle for this, but I will have to leave that up to you. Please share some pictures when it's done.

Get some lovely fresh bread. Go to the coldest part of your fridge and get out some rock-hard butter. Don't let the butter soften; just drag your new knife across its surface so worm-like threads of butter are extruded through the holes. Gently spread the extruded butter worms on your bread. While your mouth is hanging open in amazement throw the bread and butter in and enjoy.

If you like my stuff please feel free to check out my Etsy store at deBurghSTEEL.