Weathered Magnetic Bottle Opener

Someone in the comments of An Unconventional Beer Caddy suggested adding a bottle opener to make it "a complete portable beer station". I thought this was a fantastic idea, so I decided to do something about it. Of course, I could've just bought a bottle opener, but where's the fun in that? I love this bottle opener because it's so low profile, and looks great even when just stuck on the fridge.

- 3/4" diameter wooden dowel

- Nail with a large head

- Wood stain

- At least 150 grit sandpaper

- Two 1/4" diameter neodymium magnets

- Hammer

- Epoxy

- Hacksaw

- Drill or drill press

- Bench vise

- Cut a 4.25" long piece off the dowel. This will become the handle.

- Sand the cut edge smooth.

- Use sandpaper to give one end of the dowel a beveled edge. This makes the bottle opener look better and feel better in one's hand.

- Drill a roughly 1.5" deep hole in the center of the un-beveled end of the dowel using a drill bit the same diameter as your nail. Be sure to take your time! I rushed, and ended up with an off-center hole.

- In the third image, the "face" of the dowel is shown, with the center hole represented by the red dot. The two blue bars on the sides represent the holes for the magnets. The magnet holes should appear to be at a 90 degree angle to each other when viewing the face.

- Drill the holes for the magnets about a 1/2" in from the end of the dowel using a 1/4" drill bit. Since the dowel is round (of course), the holes will have an uneven depth; you want the magnet to be flush with the surface of the dowel at the "deepest" part of the hole.

- Grab a bottle. Hold the nail against the dowel, and position it so that the head of the nail is just below the lip of the bottle cap. Mark where the nail meets the drilled hole in the center of the dowel.

- Bend the nail in a 90 degree angle at the mark. I used a bench vise and hammer to do this.

- Insert the nail into the center hole of the dowel. Check how far it sticks out from the end.

- You want the the nail to stick out between about 3/16" to 5/16" from the end of the dowel. If it sticks out any more, remove the nail from the dowel and cut the excess off the end using the hacksaw.

- Use progressively finer sandpaper to make the dowel nice and smooth.

- Use stain, paint, or whatever else you want (coffee? tea?) to give the dowel a weathered patina.

- Mix up some epoxy and glue the magnets in place.

- Next, coat the nail in epoxy. Stick the nail into the center hole, and make sure that the head of the nail lines up with one of the magnets.