Build an Easy Tool Tote From Recycled Aluminum Cans

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With four recycled aluminum cans, a small board and a few machine screws you can make this handy tool tote in no time.
With four recycled aluminum cans, a small board and a few machine screws you can make this handy tool tote in no time.
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Construction diagram for MOTHER's tin-can toter.
Construction diagram for MOTHER's tin-can toter.

What has four cans, a handle, and goes anywhere? Why, MOTHER’s “odds and ends” carrier, that’s what. Got some shingles to tack down on the roof, a pesky piece of molding that won’t stay put, or even an ornery machine that needs adjusting before it’ll start? Well, the tin-can “toter” you see here can help you with all these chores — plus a heap more, if you’ll let it!

And you can whip one up in a jiffy from almost any four recycled aluminum cans (the size of the cans isn’t really critical, as long as they’re at least 5-inches tall and no more than four inches in diameter), a slab of wood which measures about 3/4-by-7-by-9-inches, and four 1-inch long 10-32 machine screws with nuts.

Build Your Easy Tool Tote

Use a hole saw to drill two 1 1/4-inch holes 5-inches apart and one and 1/2-inches down from the “top” (one of the 7-inch edges) of the board. Next measure 3-inches dlown from the center of the 1 1/4-inch holes and drill a pair of 13/64-inch holes side by side and also spaced 5-inches apart. Another set of 13/64-inch holes — again, 5-inches apart — are then drilled through the piece of wood 4-inches below the first pair.

Carefully trim out the curved section of wood between the two 1 1/4-inch holes with a coping saw, round off the corners of the “handle,” sand the whole board smooth, and give the wood a coat or two of polyurethane or a paint of your choice.

  • Published on Jan 1, 1979
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