Upcycle Project Update

Week one of this project mainly involved preparation work. I have collected about 16 cans to work with, which I believe will be more than enough. However, I still want to find some source of wire or something similar to stand in as the lasso or the body frame. So far, I have cleaned all the cans out, but I still need to cut them apart to use as sheets. On the other end of preparation work, I have begun sketching out some stencils to cut out of the cans once they have been cut into sheets. Once I finish the head and the vest I want to recreate the stencils using Illustrator or Solidworks Sheetmetal features. All of these will need to be able to be cut out by hand first on paper and then again on the aluminum. While I will be prototyping on the aluminum I also want to spend a good amount of time refining the stencils digitally first.

In terms of final assembly I need to do some testing on different ways to make the metal attach to itself. I would like to use solder but I am worried that the lining both inside and outside the cans will prevent proper adhesion. Otherwise I would like to try superglue, though I am not optimistic of this approach. So, if neither of these work I will be trying to design these stencils to have tabs that can be crimped together, providing a purely mechanical attachment. However I believe this will be difficult both in design and actual handling as these tabs will likely be very small and contained in some very tight spaces.

In my last post I mentioned that I might want to paint the final version. While this is still not completely important for me to feel content with my project, I have been giving it some more thought. I was originally thinking that I might want to paint the whole thing a rustic brown or gold, but I think instead I would like to paint each individual part a little more specifically. I do not plan to add any features to the face, and so the head and body will likely stay a constant brown or worn gold. But I want to paint the spurs and badge a shiny gold that stands out. Adding brown black or blue to the other clothing items and painting the lasso a yellow or brown too.