OK, here’s my first attempt. I only had a kitchen paring knife and some old 120 sand paper handy, so I have not used appropriate tools, and this took me about 45 minutes. So with the right tools and right sandpaper, I imagine the process will be quicker and the hook will be better :-)
When hubby arrives I’m going to dash off to Bunnings and get some proper stuff, including finer sandpaper to finish it off, a little saw to saw off the end, and some sort of clear varnish :-)If I can find a straighter stick, I could sand the entire length and leave the knob on the end and it would be a great tunisian !!
Introducing, my new afghan hook !!
She’s about 10mm in width, and a massive 47 cm long !!! She’s not totally straight, but the width is even all along. I finished her off with 800 sandpaper so she’s actually shiny even before painting, and after a test run, the hook head is pointy enough and deep enough, and she works beautifully !! Super silky smooth too !
I’ve always wanted a wider and longer afghan hook, and I managed to whittle one out of a very long twig. The yarn on this hook is a super thick yarn :-)
She’s not yet totally refined. She needs a light coat of clear paint, and I’m wondering what to do with the end. I can drill a little hole and put a cable in with superglue, or I can find a nice decorative knob to either screw in or glue on.
She’s longer than my keyboard !!
ETA: I envisage that if I start using pre-manufactured dowels from Bunnings, I can have a longer and straighter hook, any width I want ! Basically as long as I want !! (How long is too long?)
Notes
I have made a cabled tunisian crochet hook.
Started with all the clever ideas of all the wonderful women of Crochet Lovers Victoria and heaps of information on various websites.
Bought 25mm dowel from Bunnings, plus a coping saw, some Araldite and lots of grades of sandpaper.
After searching the internet for ideas of how to attach a cable and thinking long and hard, all of a sudden I realised that a cable knitting needle was already made for the job, it just had to be made to fit.
So that is what I did.
I cut the dowell and carved the hook my self and sanded it all over. A friend drilled a long hole in the blunt end exactly the same size as the circular knitting needle, then I pared that end down as well. When it was all how I wanted it we used Araldite to hold the needle inside the hook and built up the Araldite around the join to make it as seamless as possible.
Then cut a chunky disk of dowell and sanded it down, Another hole drilled and it was glued onto the other end of the cable needle to act as a stopper.
Both times the needle was cut shorter so the thickest part was used to give the tightest possible fit.
then hook sanded again and coated with furniture polish until it stopped soaking in.
The pine this is made of is very soft. I also bought a piece of Tasmanian oak to try for another hook. It is a hardwood so will be much more work.
I should add here that the hook size is 25mm!
This hook was made by Dawniedear. You can read more about it here, while you are there laughingpurple has some ventures with her own hook making where she has taken to the resources of nature to make her own hook.
My Hook
My Recepie For Making A Hook.
Here she is after a couple of hours of work. She is sitting along side a 4mm crochet hook. I believe I have made a 20mm hook here.
After rounding off the end of the hook, I have some whipper snipper cord to insert into the end of the hook, then I will attatch the small wooden disc's to the end of the cord, they are light weight, wooden biscuit joiners, which remind me a bit of a wafer. Once this process is complete, I will have my 20mm extendable tunisian hook ready to go.