I was excited to view a video on YouTube that showed how to make an arm socket using nothing more than a 2L soda bottle and a heat gun. Soda Bottle Prosthesis

I took 2 empty bottles to my prosthesist, and he made these sockets from the mold he is making my permanent carbon socket from. I was soooo excited, because they did work!

However, the neck area was flimsy, and bent everytime I tried carrying anything heavier than a handful of mulch. It bent when I tried using the hand shaped tool, that was given to me by ny Pros Doc, as a rake in loose dirt.

So back I went in 2 weeks because my permanent pros needed more work. I described what I was doing with the pop bottle pros and said something to the effect that I needed fiberglass strips or something around that neck area, and my Doc came up with the idea of using casting tape to reinforce the end of the socket

This worked very well, at least wise being very strong and stiff. It remains to be seen as to how it holds up to manual laboring. I am aware of the second YouTube video that shows adding a second pop bottle to the first one, and this may work very well. I will try that idea sometime and report here, but in the mean-time the casting tape idea is what I am going with.

I have played with creating a tool to hold the handle of tree limb cutters. At least maybe I can manage to cut small trees and limbs in the fence row, and briar stalks, etc without having to put the tool on the ground and using my foot as a brace while pulling the other handle.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Sorry about the clarity of the following images, I am a lousy photographer.

I created this tool by cutting a rectangle piece with a saber saw from the plastic given to me by my pros doc, making sure I had a handle shape at one end. Then holding the cutter handle upright on the plastic I traced around it. I then used a spade bit to cut a circle from the center of the oval outline that the handle tracing made, and used the saber saw to finish the oval cutout. You can see the piece I made at the end of the orange handle.

A closer look at the soon-to-be handle holder (hand). This is apprx. 3" long and 2" wide.....

The socket with the blue hand on it is what will be used for attachments. You can see the casting tape on the end. The gray section is 1/2" ID PVC conduit. This fits in the neck of the sodas bottle very tightly with some strong urging, after the neck has been cross cut. Then a 9/16 (7/16 will work too) hose clamp is clamped very tightly onto the neck, holding the pvc in. The same clamping is done on the end that holds the attachment.

Here is the handle holder with the neck bent 90 degrees. I clamped the piece in the vise, right at the edge where the handle began, and heated the thing with a heat gun until it would bend 90 degrees. After letting it cool, you can see how it turned out.

Yes, I think this will do what I need done.

I put a short length of PVC in the vise and tightened until the end of the PVC started becoming an oval, because the handle wouldn't slide into the circular pipe. I then shoved the 'hand' into the end and removed it from the vise. I cut the PVC off right at the end of the inserted plastic because I need strength, and this will allow the plastic 'hand' to lay against the neck of the socket.

Here it is inserted into the neck of the soda bottle socket, minus clamps. A trial run you might say (I did a lot of trial runs)

Tah-dah! All done, except for the true test of using it very soon to cut down a wild blackberry thicket here on the place. I also am going to cut down a really wicked bunch of multi-flora roses in the fence row, IF this contraption does as well as I hope it does! I suspect however that I will need to put a stopper of some sort on the orange handle to stop it from sliding through the 'hand' too far. Hmmmm another hose clamp maybe?

A better look? I will have a few more images to post here as soon as I get to use this and my better half can take the pix for me.

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© May 7, 2010