Tin Chickens
Tin
Chickens
Clare L Farrelly
You will need. Gloves, safety glasses,
wavy tin, flat tin, a pencil, chicken pattern, tin snips, a file, a drill, pop
rivets, a pop rivet gun, paint and a
very small paintbrush. and maybe some other stuff.
I never realized you needed so many
things till I started to write them all out.
Start
with a piece of tin. Careful it may (will) be sharp in places. Lay the chicken
pattern on the tin and trace around it. Next cut out a square around the
chicken, being careful to not bend the tin too much (or else you will have a
deformed chicken). With the tin snips cut off bits around the outline. Now it
should look more like a chicken.
Careful
the tin is sharp and cuts deep.
To
make the stick that you will put into the ground, cut a rectangle out of some
flat tin that is fairly easy to bend. Hammer a little over a third of the long
edge over on top of itself towards the middle and then the other long side in too
so the edges are not sharp. It should be stronger now too, because it is double
layered.
Drill
two holes in the chicken.
Remember the
pop rivets fat end should just fit through them. File away the bits of tin that
stick up around the holes. Now position the metal stick behind the chicken and
draw a dot, through the holes you just drilled, so that when you try to match
the holes up they fit!
Next drill the holes in the
stick using the pencilled dots you just drew. Then you must fit the pop rivets
in the holes (push them through from the front). It is a good idea to do one a
little then the other a little before you make them firm and pop you have a
chicken.
For
the eye you could just drill a hole, if this is how you want it then do that
before you paint it. Or you could drill a hole (now) and put a pop rivet in
after the chicken is painted, or you could just paint the eye on.
Lastly paint: spray the chicken all over
in a few light coats (to prevent the paint running) of your desired colour. Using
a different colour, paint little wings, eyes, beak and if you want little
splodges. If you want to spray paint things like the beak, wrap the
chicken-only when it’s completely dry-in a rag, leaving the beak uncovered.
This is to avoid accidentally spraying the chicken’s whole head. Both sides can
be painted.
Make
sure that the different sorts of paint are all compatible with each other and
oil based, then they won’t weather so easily. I use enamel oil based paints.
Now you can give it a home in your
garden and make some more.
Try putting
three together or making them face the other way, experiment with colours and
eyes.About the Author
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