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I searched long and hard for something to use for the wind cups. Plastic wouldn't last
long here in Arizona so I wanted metal, and metal hemispheres were impossible to find.
Then, making dinner one night, I pulled a soup ladle out of the drawer and EUREKA!. |
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I had to search through several dollar and discount stores, and finally at a Big Lots I
found the perfect ladles. The cups are about 3 inches across, and the handles are about
11 inches long. |
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And you have to admit, they're cheap! |
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Looking at the unmodified ladle we can see what has to be done. Obviously, the handle
has to go. Then we have to get that little bend out of the shank, and then bend the
shank over so that it's parallel with the rim of the cup. |
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The outside of the handle was a soft ruber grip, and it was fairly east to rip off of
the inner hard plastic handle |
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The hard plastic inner liner was tougher. I had to clamp it into the vise and
really 'persuade' it to let go of the spoon. With the handle off of the spoon the
remaining shank is a little over 6 inches long, which should do fine. |
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To get rid of that first little bend I clamped the whole shank into my bench vise and
squashed it flat. |
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With the ladle still in the vise, I used a bot of brute force to bend the cup back so
that it's rim was inline with the shank. |
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The end result sure looks like an anemometer cup to me! |
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I'm very happy with these. The ladles are polished stainless steel and the shanks are
welded to the cups. I can not image that it will ever get hot enough, or windy enought
to do any kind of damage to these things. |
