Wow -- it is day 200 of this year already. Where does the time go?
Tonight I have been thinking I really need to get started getting the legs attached to the torso of this rabbit-ish/cat-ish guy. His body is made from a canister that held dishwasher pellets. The sides are a fairly rigid cardboard and the bottom is a thin piece of aluminum. I didn't think about just how thin that metal is until tonight when I put the hard cardboard tube legs into place, but I am getting ahead of myself.
It makes me very nervous to use the Dremel tool or the drill for anything other than wood. My plan was to make a tiny pilot hole with the Dremel tool and then widen it as I went along with the drill. I got a huge surprise when I used the Dremel on the can bottom. It was bouncy and fought me, then when it pushed through it took off on me in both of the holes. THAT scared me enough to not want to put the big drill to it.
Then I remembered I had that new 3-in-1 saw that I bought a while back. I was hoping one of the blades would cut metal and YAY, it does! But getting it started was quite a chore. Once I got it established in the "pilot" hole(s), I was able to saw at it for a while...but it was exhausting to my wrists because the metal is so wobbly AND because I was trying very hard not to put any distress on the plaster cloth parts of the construction...including cracking the walls of the torso.
My plan was to cut the holes into pie slices and then push them inwards to help grip onto the hard cardboard tube legs...but it was just too difficult on my wrists/hands. THEN I remembered the tin snips I have -- I actually just saw them a couple of days ago in the other studio.
The snips cut through the metal like buttah! What a difference! I made my pie shapes and pushed them in but then when I tried to insert the tubes it became apparent it would be better if I simply cut the circles out all the way -- it was just that easy to use the snips.
Okay -- so then I inserted the hard cardboard tube legs and -- gah -- the metal is so wobbly that it doesn't want to support the weight of the upper construction on the tube legs. I thought about how perhaps the plaster cloth would stiffen the bottom and I could push the legs into that, but I want to apply the plaster cloth to the legs first (for easier working conditions and hopefully for more evenly covered legs) -- but in the end I thought it would probably be better to make everything really sturdy and use a round piece of wood as a base and find some wooden legs to screw into that base...it could be something like one of those inexpensive plaques (that I probably have in the basement somewhere already) and then attaching that assembly to the upper body assembly and then adding the arms, etc. I will work it out when I get to that part.
In the meantime I went ahead and used the snips to cut out the metal bottom of the can. Easy peasy.
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| I may even have more of this wood somewhere -- I am sure I rounded those edges. I like the look of them better for legs, too. |
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