Need help wrapping Christmas present for next year (2008)…

[SloppyB]

Long story short…my brother in law and I have been exchanging a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag a la the Collette/Kunkel urban ledged (http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/pants.asp). It started in 2001 when my brother in law found out I was giving him a gag gift (a Braille Playboy) so he decided to give me the above mentioned flag wrapped in about two rolls of duct tape and then welded into a pipe. I returned it the next year in a small safe, glued and screwed shut. Since then we set up a few rules. The weight and cost of material can’t increase more than 25 pounds and 25 dollars per year. You can’t damage the flag wrapping or unwrapping it. Finally, you can’t hide the flag…you have to actually give it wrapped in something.

 

Last year I delivered the flag welded into an 8 inch long 3 inch in diameter pipe. That pipe was in a 12 inch long 8 inch in diameter pipe (about a half in thick steel) filled with glue and welded shut. Well, this Christmas I received the flag back…wrapped in several rolls of duct tape, sealed in a rebar cage, wrapped in chains and more rebar and then sealed in a bucket of cement. The total weight was 183 pounds and unfortunately for my brother in law it was rather easy to get into (around an hour with a sledge hammer, angle grinder, hatchet and wire snips). This has been the case for pretty much the entire tradition…the wrapping takes as much as four times as long as the unwrapping. I want that trend to end this year…thus my question:

 

The plan for next year is to create 10 inch in diameter 6 point star out of rebar and then tightly wrap the flag around the center (should be about a 4 to 6 inch ball in the center). I’ll wrap that in tinfoil to protect the flag then I’ll wrap that in several rolls of clear packing tape applied in short strips. I feel that the packing tape will be harder to get through than duct tape. Also, in the packing tape I’ll place either pennies or steel slugs to make cutting through it harder. By the end of this process the tape/flag ball should be about 8 inches in diameter with 1 to 2 inches of the rebar exposed. Then I’ll place this into a small safe (hope to get one on Craig’s List…I need to keep this part around $100 and 175 pounds). Then I want to fill the safe with some kind of material that will harden around the star/ball/flag. The safe will then be closed, locked welded shut and the handle and knob cut off.

 

So far the ideas for the different material to be used to seal the flag in the safe are:

 

• Cement – cheap and easy but heavy and easy to break.
  
• Epoxy – expensive but easy to apply and hard to remove.
  
• Tar – cheap and easy but potentially easy to remove with heat. Bonus of using this method is the entire safe could be covered in tar after the safe is sealed…making it extra nasty.
  
• Liquid Nails – again expensive but still easy to apply and really hard to remove.
  
• Fiberglass Resin – don’t know about this option…I don’t know the cost or how hard it would be to remove as it may chip or shatter easily.
  

 

After that I’m pretty much out of ideas. Most of my idea should be pretty easy to accomplish. I need to keep the weight below 225 pounds (the limit jumped a little because my brother in law went over his limit of 175 pounds) and I can’t spend more than $225 (hopefully I can find a good safe while staying in budget). So any ideas for sealing the flag in the safe (the cheaper and harder/nastier to remove the better) and/or other variations and ideas will be greatly appreciated.

 

When I end up “wrapping” the flag I’ll post photos and information on the final method.

 

Thanks in advance.

/SloppyB

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I doubt packing tape would be harder to cut than duct tape. However, if you did something like, say, heavy-duty canvas covered in a layer of duct tape on each side, it would be a pain to cut at all. You could throw in heavy-gauge wires weaved into the canvas to make it more of a challenge.

[Mr Skeptic]

I'd go for concrete (much tougher than cement) with some steel reinforcement. You might not need the safe, and it would probably not be cost-effective if you plan to weld it shut and destroy it anyways. If you do get a metal container, you should probably rough the edges so it is not easy to unstick from the concrete.

[richard]

How about two part epoxy resins. Leave it in two parts in separate but adjoining packages. It will mix and harden on the tools as he works. A few fiber materials mixed in may be fun too. Roofing felt adhesive instead of plain tar.

[iNow]

Another idea to fill the safe before you seal it would be expanding spray foam insulation. It's relatively cheap, very light, will fill every crevice, and is sticky and hard to remove.

 

 

Thanks for sharing your tradition with us here. It has brought a smile to my face, and made me realize I'm just not trying hard enough with my friends and family.

 

I'd be curious to know what you ultimately decide upon.

[MrMongoose]

That's just so cool that I have to ask what you send when its not your turn with the flag!

[insane_alien]

some kevlar put in the mix wouldn't go amiss either. that stuffs hard to cut. hence its application in stab and bullet proof vests