Aspergillum

I have a priest friend who does not have an aspergillum. So I went shopping today to buy one for him. STICKER SHOCK!!!! Everyting I found was priced between $200 and $500!!! So I made one for him instead.
Here is how I did it.

Materials:
-Seven 20-inch long slender, pliable branches from olive, juniper, and walnut trees. (If you have the trees this is free.)
-One spool of 26 guage drawn copper wire. $2.00 (I looked for gold or silver, but I could only find plated. I don't like using plated stuff for church. Feels phoney to me.)

Tools:
-Kitchen knife
-Needle-nose pliers

Total time from start to finish (includes climbing trees to cut branches and going to store to buy wire): 3 hours

Directions:
1. strip the bark off of all of the branches.
2. Split the branches in 1/2 from one end, going down about 8 inches.
3. Then spit into 4ths, then 8ths. 16ths is ideal, but it is difficult unless your knife is very sharrp. My knife wasn't so after ruining a lot of sticks I settled for 8ths.
4.Bundle the sticks together so all the split ends are at ond end of the bundle.
5. Wrap one loop around the whole ends of the bundle (about 1.5 inches from the very end.) and tie it off.
6. Cut the wire and tuck the ends into the bundle so that they can not bee seen.
7. Below the loop begin weaving the wire in and out of the sticks. This creates a wedge so that as the sticks dry they won't fall out.
8. Begin wrapping wire around the bottom of the sticks. Continue wrapping until you have a good copper handle.
9. At the top of the handle (e.g. the end of the handle closest to the split ends of the sticks) do some more wedging.
10. Tie the wire tightly and tuck the end into the bundle.

Now everytime your priest splashes Holy Water on someone, you get to be part of the action.