Introduction: Terminator Foot Nut Cracker (revised)

About: Professional work in various electrical and mechanical fields, obscure sense of humour and typically willing to help... Currently under contract designing environmental monitoring equipment.

I figure that skull crushing force of a terminator foot can easily take on a walnut....

With over 250 pounds of crushing force there really is no contest here...

Step 1: Turn This Into THIS...

I Was actually able to find Walnuts in Calgary in August!

Starting with scrap materials you can easily make this project.

Did I mention that you will need to Torch weld with 1/16 steel rod.

Step 2: Begin With Assessing the Materials That You Have.

I used a thick piece of plate steel that was from a scrap bin. It happened to be a cut circle.

The upright and lever are 1.25 inch X 0.065 square steel tube.

The big toe is 3/16 steel rod.

The reaming toes and upper foot pieces are 1/4 steel rod all cut at proportional lengths

The heel and leg are 1/2 inch steel rod.

The joining nuts are 6/32 machine

The hinge bolts are 1/4 20 with nuts

Step 3: Base and Stand

I used a scrap piece of steel from a local recycler. This was covered with foundry scale which was removed with a flap disc to reveal a shiny surface...

this is a simple lever design using the supposed knee joint as a hinge pivot. this upper lever is attached to a solid rod which is the crushing force application device.

The lever joint is cut from one end of the longer piece of square steel then I cut and flattened one end of the shorter piece. The two ends were fitted together then drilled with a 1/4 inch bit. Finally I used a 1/4 20 bolt to secure them together.

The short upright piece was positioned and clamped to the base using a magnetic clamp.

The shorter upright is welded to the base using sufficient heat to create a solid weld. In this case I cheated and used my Stick welder.

Step 4: The Foot!

There are no measurements as this was done in the appreciation of aesthetics...

I used Gas Torch welding with a 1/16 copper coated rod for all joints.

I cut a 1 inch square piece of 1/4 inch steel bar then began welding machine nuts to it starting in the center as shown.

Once the upper and lower machine nuts were welded in place I moved on to the lower toes.

The toe, metacarpal pieces are from 1/4 inch for the big toe and 3/16 inch for the rest. The big toe is about 1.5 inches long, one end rounded on a grinder and bent at about the 3/8 mark. moving with fluidity, I bent the others while maintaining a real looking skeleton.

All steel rod is held in place with a needle nose vice grip to allow my hands to be free to weld.

1/4 inch Steel rod is then cut and ground to fit between the upper nuts applied to give a parallelogram type of assembly for each toe element.

All welding is to the machine nuts only. This allows for space to present the illusion of movement...

The back of the foot had its back corners cut off at about 45 degrees then it was filed round.

The heel part is a piece of 1/2 inch steel rod that was filed to a ball end, the other end was cut at a bevel then it was welded to the underside of the foot.

Step 5: Join the Foot to the Base

Place the foot on the base where it looks good.

I cut and place a small section of 1/2 inch steel rod to act as a leg, between the foot and lever, then marked the lever where the leg should be.

I welded the the foot to the leg.

The I ground 2 flat section on the top of the leg for a knee joint. Then drilled a 1/4 inch hole and finally rounded out the top corners.

Next I placed a 1/4 inch bolt with nuts one either side of the knee joint then welded it to the underside of the lever where I had marked.


Step 6: Polish and Finish.

I disassemble then polished ever piece on a bench grinder with a wire wheel.

I reassembled it using new and custom cut bolts.

Now the walnuts are no longer safe.