N
Nomad
Guest
This has nothing to do with stripy horses building nests.
Here is a 12cm Zebra billy...
If I take the lid off...
...I find another lid inside, upside down. If I take that lid away...
...I find a cup, which I remove to reveal...
...a 10cm Zebra stashed inside the 12cm Zebra.
[cue cheesy Ta-daa!! sound]
How can this be? Did I distort the spacetime continuum?
No!
Let's pull it out a bit to reveal the trick to the astonished audience...
That handle looks a bit odd - it no longer has the straight section in the middle. Here are the 10 and 12cm billies next to each other for comparison...
Explanatory Witter
The thing that stops the smaller billy fitting inside the bigger billy is the 'corners' on the handle, at each end of the central straight section. On the basis that these things are sold as lunch boxes, which one presumably carries, it follows that you want a handle that is shaped to be comfy for the typical amount of time it's being carried (to school or work, for example). For bushy use, this is much less of a requirement, so there is little reason to retain the straight section with its attendant corners.
So, if you move the corners inwards a bit, you can make the smaller billy fit into the bigger one. I used a vice as a press, along with various round bits of metal as formers to flatten out the corners a bit (increase the radius to be more precise) and to create an angle around the detent in the middle of the straight section. A better shape might be something that's more curved overall, but this is quite hard to make because the handle in section isn't flat - it has a comfy curved profile. It might be worth just flattening it anyway and then making a more curved bow shape, but it seems to fit okay as it is. I might tweak it some more later.
The fit is quite snug - the rivets at the hinges push very slightly against the inside of the bigger billy and it needs a little push to get it to go in. Once in, there is virtually no rattle, and a little press on the sides of the bigger billy between the rivets on the smaller one (ie, 90° away) make it easy to extract.
Here is a 12cm Zebra billy...
If I take the lid off...
...I find another lid inside, upside down. If I take that lid away...
...I find a cup, which I remove to reveal...
...a 10cm Zebra stashed inside the 12cm Zebra.
[cue cheesy Ta-daa!! sound]
How can this be? Did I distort the spacetime continuum?
No!
Let's pull it out a bit to reveal the trick to the astonished audience...
That handle looks a bit odd - it no longer has the straight section in the middle. Here are the 10 and 12cm billies next to each other for comparison...
Explanatory Witter
The thing that stops the smaller billy fitting inside the bigger billy is the 'corners' on the handle, at each end of the central straight section. On the basis that these things are sold as lunch boxes, which one presumably carries, it follows that you want a handle that is shaped to be comfy for the typical amount of time it's being carried (to school or work, for example). For bushy use, this is much less of a requirement, so there is little reason to retain the straight section with its attendant corners.
So, if you move the corners inwards a bit, you can make the smaller billy fit into the bigger one. I used a vice as a press, along with various round bits of metal as formers to flatten out the corners a bit (increase the radius to be more precise) and to create an angle around the detent in the middle of the straight section. A better shape might be something that's more curved overall, but this is quite hard to make because the handle in section isn't flat - it has a comfy curved profile. It might be worth just flattening it anyway and then making a more curved bow shape, but it seems to fit okay as it is. I might tweak it some more later.
The fit is quite snug - the rivets at the hinges push very slightly against the inside of the bigger billy and it needs a little push to get it to go in. Once in, there is virtually no rattle, and a little press on the sides of the bigger billy between the rivets on the smaller one (ie, 90° away) make it easy to extract.
