Summary

No longer will the world's children feel the lack of precision-cut snacks.

The Tinkeriffic Sawmill cleaves your carrots, planks your pears, and fertilizes innumerable "who cut the cheese?" jokes.

This, my frang, is that about which Willis spoke.

Pictorial Tinkertoy assembly instructions over on the blog: http://zheng3.com/?p=1426

Instructions

Instructions:

Zip archive contains a bed, blade, foot, and guide bar. Print the foot twice. The guide bar is optional but useful for making straight cuts.

No post-processing necessary. Just print and build a support structure from Tinkertoys.

The saw blade should slide easily onto its axle.

All Tinkertoys are created accurate, but not necessarily precise; there can be some minor variation in diameter and flex for any given rod. Rather than chase The White Rabbit of Perfect Compatibility, I opted to design connections loose where necessary and let the user compensate with a little tape, goo, or what have you.

You'll need to tape-wrap the axle to really make a firm connection so that the saw doesn't bind up or slip when cutting something hard like an apple or carrot.

Unless you have a prehensile tail or have epoxied the bed and feet to a cutting board, milling a snack is a two-person job.

Hang the crank over a countertop edge so it doesn't strike your work surface while turning. Hold down the rest of the assembly with your free hand.

Crank the saw up to speed before feeding it a snack. A child should easily be able to produce 60 RPM, which is enough to cut a carrot. Feed the snack through the mill and continue cranking until the snack has passed the blade.

Use the optional guide bar to ensure straight cuts.

I've tested this with carrots, whole wheat bread, cheddar cheese, and apples.

Complete instructions for the Tinkertoy assembly (with photos) over at the blog.

Tinkeriffic Snack Sawmill