What to do with unusable brake shoes
Make them in to art!
Steven ordered new brake shoes for my car in February, and when he and my dad began to install him, they found out he was shipped the wrong part. So they went to three different auto parts stores and realized the wrong item is listed for our car in all of the catalogs! They resorted to looking at brake shoes from several similar models until they found the right one. Fun, right?
And what are brake shoes? The owl’s wings! Beyond that? No idea.*
We didn’t keep the unused shoes in the garage with the intention of using them for a welding project, but when Steven had the idea to make something for our neighbor Jen for her birthday, and I told him she likes owls, it seemed like a perfect use for them!
We spent a bit of time looking at pictures of owls to decide how we wanted our caricature to appear, then laying out the pieces of metal to get the right look.
When Steven went to work on it the first time though, he found out that he couldn’t weld the can bottoms directly to the shoes – the weld went right through it. So we waited until we ate more canned young corn, to try again (hee hee). The second time, he attached the cans to the ears, and ears to the wings, and that seemed to hold better.
Steven decided he wanted to rust the medal. Here is what it looked like before:
To get the rusty look, he first “etched” it (sprayed it) with vinegar so that the acid in the vinegar would eat the medal. Then he sprayed it with a solution of vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and salt, and that makes it rust.
Ta da! Rusty Owlie (I know, so original with our names). We’re excited to see where our neighbor puts it!
*Just kidding, after reading this draft, Steven explained them to me.
Themocracy
Wow, he’s so creative! 😮 I never would have thought of that just looking at unusable brake shoes!
Me either! Never in a million years! 😀
Rusty Owlie looks awesome!!!!! Did you sand down the sharp edges of the cans? Did you have to clean oil off the brake shoes? How’d you get it off if you did?
Gras! The edges of the cans weren’t sharp because of the way our can opener works 🙂 Steven used brake cleaner fluid to get the oil off 🙂
Very, very nice you guys! You really should think about setting up an etsy shop or maybe going to a craft fair in the future.
This little guy is beyond adorable! I’m not big into lawn decorations but I would totally put him in my garden or on my balcony!
So creative. He really needs to go into business. People would snap this stuff up!
I love my owl!! So impressed with Steven’t talents and so thrilled that he made something for me. I really have to find a great place for it because it’s so cool! Much thanks and Hugs to you both!
You’re very welcome! 🙂 We love that you love it. Hee hee.
you are both so creative
You guys crack me up. I love the art! Owls are so much fun. What’s the next scrap art project? 🙂
I don’t know yet… although I did suggest an otter for a friend… ha ha ha. 🙂
So creative! i LOVE IT. Steve has quite a gift.
Soo So cute! I love owls!
Amazing!!! I have neither the imagination nor the skillz for that… AND i don’t know what brake shoes do so I this post is very impressive to me, basically 😉
Is the lollipop in the photo for scale, or did you give it to your neighbor too because she likes them? (What flavor is it? Haha.)
Steven is such an engineer! I’d be SO bad at taking disparate parts and envisioning how to put them together to make a little owl statue. I’m so impressed!
The lollipop is there because he’s an owl and it made me think of the “how many licks” commercial 🙂 I can’t recall what flavor it was!
He IS good at that. I am totally NOT. Ha ha ha.