Altered Tin Robot

I get emails from Pinterest with new and interesting posts each week. I was looking at a recent one that included some recycled projects. It had some really cute robots made from tins and other found objects. It inspired this project.

I have had a greeting card tin for over a year just waiting for the right project. I found it in this robot idea. Now I have done robots before so this just sounded fun.

I gathered a bunch of items from my craft stash and laid them all out on the table.

I began by choosing an old clock for the head. The hands still move on it. The tabs on the bottom were perfect for attaching it. I drilled holes in the tin and put bolts through to secure the head. The long bolts let me attach the computer parts that my arm wires hooked to.

I had bought a mini sewing machine at a yard sale that included a whole bunch of mini spools of thread. I used these on the arm wires and added a heavy computer ring on the wire end for the hands.

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to attach legs to the tin. I finally figured out that if I drilled holes in the tin and used screws I could attach the wooden spools. Then I put a dowel inside the spools to glue the lower ones securely. I felt that the extra wood inside with the glue would hold better than just gluing the spools together.

My next dilemma was to find a way to attach items to the inside. The slick tin was not going to hold the glue too well. My plan was to make this robot so he could stand outside on the patio. Since I live in Arizona the weather ranges from 112 degrees to 20 degrees. So either extreme might compromise even the E6000 glue if it was on the metal.

I decided to drill holes along the edge of the back and run wire up and down plus back and forth. That way I could use wire to hold most things and the weather would not bother anything.

I slipped a couple things behind the wire and then began adding items using wire to attach them.






I kept adding until I felt it was full and would look right. I added the little ceramic dog for interest. It was glued using E6000 onto the little spool that is covered with foil.

The heart is polymer clay and miscellaneous watch and metal parts. I made it a few years ago as a necklace (along with a bunch more) but decided this was a good use for it.

Everything has been wired in so it won’t slip or fall out. I even ran some wires through the holes to be able to position parts in the right places.

I felt that the clock seemed a little small. So I used red and black wire to add crazy hair to make the head bigger.

I drilled holes in the sides of the lid and the tin and screwed the lid on so it wouldn’t fall off from the weather.

I thought this was a fun project, but it took me two days to complete. I am thinking that a small tin would be quicker and require fewer parts to make. This robot stands over 12 inches tall. It was a large project, but it looks cool in the yard with my wire wrap bugs.

Til next week.

Terri

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