Hello

A few months back I made my first rubiks twist bottleopener and was quite pleased with it, but I thought the lip was too thin. It survived me testing it but after my graduation this spring we had 20+ guests and it got used quite a lot so it bent backwards and cannot open any more bottles. How do I solve this? Heating it up and bending it back again will just be a temporary solution, but what if you tac weld the back of it so you add some material? Maybe just fold the tip and push the ring closer?

If it was one of my normal bottleopeners I'd just make a new one, but since this is my first rubiks twist it would be nice to fix it.

Difficult to fix. You could try grinding off the lip and forging another, but you would likely have very little material to work with and it may be just as weak. And the time and effort you would spend would probably be more than it would take to forge another twist. Just keep it and look back on it when you have forged a couple of hundred bottle openers!

Put a spot of weld on it with a MIG welder, and reshape it.

 

You can PROBABLY cut the bent part off and close up the ring a LITTLE. The tab doesn't need stick out like that it just needs to catch the cap. If trimming it off doesn't work, welding a bead and forging a new tab is still an option involving no more work than it does now.

Frosty The Lucky.

I'd go with BGDs suggestion. You could straighten the tab cold and spot of weld on the back to make it thicker, file back to shape.

Forgot to post the update.

I filled the cavity with some mig welding and it got really ugly (the welds are ugly because the welder can't use gas) but it works better now. In short, if you have to fill in material with a welder, just forge a new piece instead. It might make it usable, but it gets really ugly.