Yes, you can find these things at a dollar store.
On the other hand, if you have a spare coat hangar and some old telephone wire, you can make your own!
Image may be NSFW.
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Cheese Slicer Original (left) and 2.0 (right)
The original (the one on the right) I built because it was getting close to lunch time at the office and I was missing the one I have at home. I had the components and the opportunity, so I took it.
Thanks to my obsessively tweakish personality, after using v.1 I discovered some areas for improvement: (1) the blade was just barely wide enough to accommodate my block of cheese; (2) you have to grip v1 in just the right way in order to use it well.
Naturally the solution to this problem isn’t to spend a buck on a superior replacement. The solution is to analyze, design and build an improved version!
The wider “goal posts” of this improved version necessitate the inclusion of the tension bar, which you can adjust with your thumb and forefinger while gripping the handle to produce exquisite and majestic slices of fine fromage.
I’ve already got plans for v3. The copper blade is the weak point of this device. Too much tension and it will break. It will also oxidize over time, although I’m pretty sure that the simple action of cleaning the blade after each use will keep it shiny.
In any event I’m waiting ’til my guitar needs to be re-strung. The smallest E-string will make a thinner blade (read: will slice even easier) and will be much stronger. It’ll be a bit more of a pain to wind onto the arm, but I have some thoughts on that front, too….
… and then I could re-jigger the v1 unit with some horse hair, rosin it up and call it a bow. Some practice with the tension bar, and voila (or should that be “viola”, heh).
Stay tuned!
