Where to buy SPARE key-&-twist openers, for roll-top tins (of corned beef, etc.)

APennySaved

Here's a question for all you canny people out there! . . .

Where can I buy SPARE key-&-twist tin openers? These are the metal 'keys' that open the roll-top type of tin that is used by food manufacturers for corned beef, etc. (You know: the key rolls along the top of a tin, pulling a metal strip of the tin away with it, to open the can.)

We find these keys have a tendency to disappear in the larder, under mysterious circumstances. Rather like the eternal post-wash Mystery of the Missing Sock!

So - without the twist-key - we now have several tins in the kitchen that are unopenable & thus unusable :wall:. This is due to the rectangular shape of the tins. Well, they are unopenable - top or bottom of the tin - with the tin openers that we have, anyway!

I have looked online at length for any sellers of such spares - at Google shopping, eBay, Amazon - but with no success.

Any ideas re where I can source this spare item?? :think:

Or, in fact, if there is a REUSABLE tin opener that would do? In fact, that would be preferable to a disposable twist-key. (It would have to be a safe gadget, though. Not the old Boy Scout open-bladed type of supposed tin opener, as I reckon that would be more likely to slip & :eek: open a finger than open the tin!! )

pm2326

Don't know where to buy spares but I've used a pair of thin nosed pliers to open these tins before.

pigpen

I just use a tin opener... open the bottom then a few holes in the top and the contents slide out.

natbags

you can open these with a tin opener if you turn the tin opener round. Rather than cutting into the top turn the tin opener round (so its side ways on) and cut into the sides just below the top (and the thicker bit of metal)
Usually best to do this top and bottom with the strange shaped tins

Gigervamp

A pair of pliers should do it.

molerat

Snipe nose pliers as you can grip the tab and roll just like the key. Been there & done it.

APennySaved

Thanks all.

The thin-nosed pliers sound a particularly great idea - and a reusable 'key'!

But how do I then get the strip of metal from the tin - that has coiled around the 'nose' of the pliers - to come off?! Especially without cutting myself?! :eek:

. . . Or do I need another set of pliers for that task?!

( I'll be hoovering the hoover next! )

nuatha

APennySaved wrote: »

Thanks all.

The thin-nosed pliers sound a particularly great idea - and a reusable 'key'!

But how do I then get the strip of metal from the tin - that has coiled around the 'nose' of the pliers - to come off?! Especially without cutting myself?! :eek:

. . . Or do I need another set of pliers for that task?!

( I'll be hoovering the hoover next! )

Or you use the pliers to remove the metal from an actual tin key which gives you a spare (or 4, having checked the drawer - I went through a spell of having this problem).

APennySaved

Thanks, nuatha :T

I have actually had to find all our unused tins over the past few months - so as to use a key from an unused tin on one of the tins that is missing a key - with the result that I now have no spare keys left - hey-ho!

So, in order to give your idea a go, I would have to go out & buy some more tins specially for the purpose of using the twist-keys from new tins on my older tins; hmmm . . . dark thought ,-) . . . maybe this loss of the twist-keys is all a plot by the manufacturers to GET us to buy more tins . . . :rotfl:

Anyway, I am contemplating giving this a go, as the only currently viable option (. . . "Hey, everyone, MORE corned beef!" - LOL!)




BTW my OH pointed out yesterday out that they'd already tried to help me by suggesting the plier idea last year i.e. my OH reminded me that last spring they'd used some pliers from the toolbox to 'peel off' the tin strip & thus open the tin, & told me that I had then nearly cut my fingers to strips getting the metal strip off the tool. Which year-old event I then remembered as I had to get out the first aid box at the time. So I should have remembered the occasion, really; but then with the necessity of the plaster-bandage it was probably a case of selective memory . . . ! ,-)

And the idea of having to use a 2nd pair of pliers to take the metal strip off the 1st pair of pliers fills me with 'grrr...!': it's like flicking off a plaster: it just lands somsewhere else! :-D

So it looks as if "borrowing from Peter to save Paul" won't necessarily work, for me at least, on this occasion!

So I will have to ponder on another solution to this conundrum a bit more . . . !

APennySaved

Hi natbags - :T - I might give this innovative! idea a go, so thanks.

I find it's the corners on those daft-shaped ,-) tins that cause all the problems!

As long as it doesn't destroy our tin openers - but maybe opening these tins from the centre upwards, rather than the top down, will work.

Roll on the attempt . . .

HOWMUCH

You can unwind the metal from the key, if like the ones on corned beef if that's what you are meaning.