How does one get into 5 gal buckets that have been sealed without tearing up the bucket????

-- Vernon Hale (create@premiernet.net), January 08, 2000

Answers

They are called "lid lifters". About 10" long 1" wide usually solid black plastic, with two hooks that go above and below the lid. Any place that sells food in buckets should have them. Cumberland and Lehman's might have them too. Try any large food storage store, Walton's, etc.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), January 08, 2000.

Around here, all you have to do is cut from all the little vertical indents down to the bottom of the lid with a box knife or even a flat screwdriver.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 08, 2000.

If you plan to extend the storable use of your buckets, then a lid lifter is a good investment. If you have extra lids to spare, then you can cut off the lid, but that would be wasteful, and then the useless lid would have to be recycled. It's painfully obvious that most Americans have a throw-away mentality. We don't recycle as often as we should. When the hard times comes, people WILL recycle because their lives will depend upon getting the most out of what they have!

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), January 08, 2000.

Bucket Busters or Lid Lifters are great, but mine has disappeared....so, in the meantime, put your knee in the middle of the bucket and get a thin hot pad for your fingers and pry, moving around the lid.

-- Kenin Marble (kenin17@yahoo.com), January 08, 2000.

You can get one for a few bucks anywhere paint is sold. I got mine at an Ace Hardware. Try Home Depot if that doesn't work. Contractors use them to open buckets of spackling and paint.

-- judy (wednesdayschild@hotmail.com), January 08, 2000.

from my experience working in a restaurant for many years (no longer tho..).

We didn't HAVE lid lifters back then.. just a large screwdriver.

Straddling the bucket (from above) you jam the screwdriver into the hole on the lid, pull back until you snap through the thin bit of plastic, go on to the next hole, repeat until you have completed the lid.

Now gently work off the lid by pulling on each section of lid until the seal lets up. This is basically the same thing as the lid lifter, you can still re-seal the bucket, although I never did test the seal on a 5 gal bucket of pickles to see how well this worked.

But there is no reason to "tear up the bucket"

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), January 11, 2000.