Month: May 2019

I went to the park make sure there are enough water in the main pound so that the duck can float. However, the pound is drying out as the weather gets warm. As an result,there were not much water left in the pound. The duck is quite heavy. Although its got enough air sealed inside its body. The amount of water left in the pound seems not enough.

Even if the duck can floating on the pound it might trapped into the weed around the pound.

As a solution, I walked into the pound using stones built up a stand that can hold duck in certain place where I wanted it to be. wire will be used to attach the duck sculpture with a piece of stone to give enough weight to the duck.

After creating the duck armature I realised that its proportion is not right,  duck’s neck is much too wide.  I measured duck’s neck and its body using a grander cut off its head. Some short  steel rods were added bring its neck inward and make it thinner.

Thin wire was used to cover up the armature frame I tie it tightly around the frame in the pattern of crosses. The  middle joint of each cross was a bit loos so I spot welded them together. To be honest it was quite hard to spot weld those thin wires after attaching them to the large frame.Next time I will spot weld the thin wire first and then tie them around the armature.

Empty bottles were stuffed into the armature making sure there are enough air secured inside duck’s body when its floating on the pond.

 

 

I start making the final duck structure, thin wire was used to create the outline of the duck. I used wire creating two duck outlines. Thin wire was quite easy to work with, after I formed it into the duck shape some parts were twisted. A wooden board was placed on top of the wire outlines try to make them  flatter.

Spot welding was decided to be use because this technique can connect wires firmly.  To be honest, it was really difficult to fit the whole structure under the welding bits. I have to keep turning the thin outline around until it fits the welding machine. During the welding process the wire outline was ruined.

As a solution I decide to use steel rode instead of thin wire. 6mm rode was much thicker and heaver than the wire. I have to bend it on a device this process is quite time consuming. I traced the duck outline on a large piece of paper making sure the proportion is right.

I kept on experiment with ways that can connect plastics together.  I start think about using tools for joining metal to connect plastics. Riveting gun was used to push through plastic however due to the thickness of two plastic bottles the rivet bit was not long enough and it always stuck in the middle of one bottle. Although I tried to use longer rivet bit it can’t hold two pieces in place unless I add metal strip on each side of the bottles. I don’t think its a good idea because if i keep adding metal strips to most rubbishes the sculpture will be quite heavy. Further more metal strip will also affect the over look of my sculpture.

I decide to mainly use plastic rather than metal. I kept  researching on how to construct plastic sculpture and understood that I  need to build a frame first and fill plastic rubbishes inside. Wire were spot wilded into a duck form I apply heat to milk bottles melt them onto the structure.