With the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs in full swing, my soccer playing daughter decided she really wanted in on the fun with her own hockey stick. Although my beloved Red Wings and adopted Coyotes are not of the tournament, I still have the hockey itch this time of year. Why not? After all, it was only 115°F at our house today, perfect weather for thinking about hockey.
Of course, I'll set Gracie up in the backyard pond to slap the puck around a bit.
I found a wooden, kid's size hockey stick with a straight blade. Clearly that wouldn't do. As an ex-Michigan, lake hockey kid, I know I gotta tape up the stick and put a slight curve to the blade to give my little girl an authentic puck handling experience. At least as authentic experience as I can muster the summer,... in the desert,... during record-breaking high temperatures.
If you've been reading for the past year, you know that if I do any project where heating stuff up is involved, I'll be bringing out a blow torch.
This post is sponsored by Bernzomatic. All experiences and opinions are 100% my own.
I clamped the kid stick in a bench vice and fired up the torch. Because I wanted to disperse heat over a wider area than I would if I was soldering, cutting, loosening bolts, or wood burning, I chose the Bernzomatic BZ4500HS Heat Shrink Torch.
Compared to the rifle-precise flame you'd find in their TS8000, the Heat Shrink torch is a like a blunderbuss; it blasts a much wider flame to heat a broader area.
Bring on the heat!
I started by heating one side of the blade, moving the big, wide flame back and forth fairly rapidly. It was not my intention to burn the blade to a crisp, but to spread the heat evenly.
The blade is made up of a multi-layer sandwich (mmmmmm...saaandwich) of resin and wood, pressed tightly together. My objective was to heat and relax the resin, allowing me to bend the blade before it cooled and locked back in place.
Even though I was rapidly moving the flame, and holding it back a fair distance, the outer surface deeply darkened as I roasted it. I never left the flame in place long enough for the resin to bubble or the wood to smolder, but it certainly got toasted.
I like my marshmallows toasted to this color too. Alternating between bending by hand (with a heavier glove) and with a pair of pliers, I slowly introduced a slight curve to the blade. As it cooled, it became stiffer and risked breaking.
She's got curves in all the right places.
I'd bring back the heat and keep a slight pressure on the blade to keep it curving the way I wanted it to.
In the end, I made a hasty jig from a pile of thin pallet wood slices, clamping the slight curve in position. I left it to cool while I went in for dinner.
When I returned and pulled the cooled stick from the clamps, the curve was permanent. I didn't have any proper friction tape around the house, but I did have a roll of gaffer's tape to wrap the blade nicely.
After I wrapped the handle, Gracie wanted even more decoration. Who am I to argue with the athlete before the big game? I candy-stripped the whole stick with red electrical tape and added some metallic-foil duct tape tape for that much needed extra flash.
With a proper stick, in hand, it was time for our little bruiser to bundle up and head out back to the pond.
Gracie's own stick in at the face off circle.
I couldn't get her to stop shooting. She pounded the puck, which oddly looks like an orange ping-pong ball in these photographs (likely due to lighting, lens flair, and barometric pressure) across the frozen pond dozens of time in the bone-chilling cold evening.
She shoots!!!
She scores!!!
What a cool project. The joy Gracie had playing with her customized hockey still was so awesome to watch that I sat out there in the bone chilling cold and watched her make slap shot after slap shot.
Lord Stanley's cup will surely be hoisted in this back yard, very soon.
This is a sponsored post. I am a proud to be a Bernzomatic Torch Bearer, though all opinions expressed are 100% my own. I won't recommend products I don't believe in.
The Torch Bearers are a group of tradespeople, DIYers, culinarians, adventurers and artists brought together to create projects using Bernzomatic torches and share their knowledge and ideas with you. Check them out here and get inspired to create with fire.
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