Making a custom handle for the cowl on my 1956 F100

 The old cowl handle is nothing more than an ugly piece of rusty steel that once might have sported a wooden cover over it. But not now. I looked around to find a nice wooden handle from a file or something similar but didn't come up with anything. Instead, a trip to Bunnings yielded this oddity. Yes, You guessed it! What you are seeing is a door stopper in two parts. The small piece is magnetic and is designed to snug against that ball shaped object. One piece connects to the door and the other to the wall to stop the door from slamming your fingers in the jamb when the wind blows. My wife actually suggested it, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.

So, of course, I did the only thing I could do and pull it to bits. It is simplicity itself: a rare earth magnet and a spring. 

The small piece slides onto the old cowl handle first. I made up a high tech bracket that will be used to screw into the cowl handle once I drill a hole and place a small screw in there to make sure it doesn't fall off.

The door stopper already had a small hole for the cowl handle and it only needed widening a little to slip right over.  The beauty about this arrangement is that all the parts screw into themselves as each piece has a thread, making it a cinch to remove if needed. 

Here it is. Looks pretty funky! Sits nicely in the hand and has some decent weight. Looks really good with the chrome handbrake don't you think?