(no subject)

[ewt]

Okay: who wants to help me build a sundial out of discarded aluminium cans? Also, who has advice on how to go about doing this? I'm thinking squish cans into appropriate shape with a big hammer, but I'm open to alternate strategies. I want fairly low-tech - the idea is to demonstrate building a useful low-tech tool using salvaged materials, low-tech tools, brute force and massive ignorance and so on.

(cross-posted to techipcom)

EDIT: The idea is not to make a really neat thing using lots of tools that I may or may not have. The idea is to demonstrate that it is possible to make something serviceable and sturdy with salvaged materials and very primitive tools. I consider a lump hammer a primitive tool because if I didn't have one I could use something else, like a brick or a rock. I don't consider aviation shears or metal snips primitive tools; I wouldn't know where to begin substituting something like that. I wouldn't even recognise metal snips if I saw them now.

I'd like this thing to be somewhat portable. I know sundials aren't usually, but I don't just want to go the "stick things in the ground and you have a sundial" route. That isn't the point; I want a self-contained sundial for dummies, something I could carry to a friend's house and use. It doesn't have to be easily portable but it shouldn't be dependent on knowing which bits of ground to stick things in, I should be able to set up the finished product by finding north (or finding out what time it is). It also shouldn't fall apart in transit.

I'd also like it to be relatively weather-proof. Little filigree bits of aluminium that will blow away or get bent or damaged in the rain aren't going to cut it. After I've made the sturdy one I might consider ways to prettify it or even just make a different one that is pretty, but I want to demonstrate that the basic article can be made, first.

The other requirement is that it has to be safe. There is a cat who comes to visit my garden and I'll not have it cutting its paws on something I made. Aluminium can be pretty sharp.

Having said all that, if there is a relatively simple way to make tools out of bits of aluminium or other salvaged material, I'm willing to give some thought to using them.

'NOTHER EDIT: I'm really bad about documenting these various projects. If someone with a nice digital camera (or even a crap digital camera, or even just someone who likes taking pictures who'd like to use my crap digital camera) wants to come along and take lots of photographs, I'd appreciate it greatly, and offer food or something.

YET 'NUTHER EDIT: Please, no more links to how to make a sundial. I know how to make a sundial, roughly, and will be reading up on various designs before actually making one. This is really more about working with salvaged materials to make a semi-permanent structure that Doesn't Suck.

Comments

[devvie.livejournal.com]

http://www.hartrao.ac.za/other/sundial/sundial.html

[farlo.livejournal.com]

Simple. use the cans as the markers for the hours. No smashing required. Use two cans taped together as the "stick", or even a real stick salvaged from soemthing (car antenna, etc.).

[flannelcat.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. You'd have to sink them in something, though....

[farlo.livejournal.com]

Fill the cans with sand. Fill one can with sand and an old antenna as the "dial". Arrange according to the hours on a clock. Now you have a portable sundial. Nobody said that the sundial ahd to stay in one place.

Additionally, draining the cans of their original contents could be a fun. :)

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I do kindof want something where I don't have to re-calibrate the hours every time I move it - if the whole thing can be moved in one piece instead of as a series of cans, it will help a lot. If the markers are not fixed in relation to the dial, the whole thing becomes very fiddly. Fiddly is not what I'm after.

However, your point is a good one - just about any markers can be used as a sundial.

[farlo.livejournal.com]

You aren't exactly building the space shuttle! Calibration is not a big issue. If sundials were all that accurate, we would still be using them.

If you can cut a cake, you can place the cans - without too much effort. Each can does not even need to be on the "hour". They just have to delineate the passage of time.

If you want "no fiddle", then I suggest a wooden board with used chewing gum ... mark off the hours with a pencil and just put the gum on the marks.

[flannelcat.livejournal.com]

who wants to help me build a sundial out of discarded aluminium cans?

Oooh! Oooh! *Bouncebounce*

Me! Me!

I'd recommend something a LITTE more elegant, though - How big would you want it? What about taking them apart and using the flattened sections of can? Or...*Thinks*

How about we get a load and play around with them?

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

It would be nice for it to be somewhat portable, so not too huge - also I don't want to give up too much of my rather small garden for it.

I've written a little more in this entry now about what sort of criteria I want to work to. Taking the cans apart may be an option, but I'm not sure how easy it will be.

Getting a load of cans and playing around with them is definitely a good idea. When I get back to London I'll start picking them up, maybe? Or should we just ask people to rinse theirs out thoroughly and save them? The latter will smell better, but the former will be more authentic to the post-world-falling-apart situation I'm trying to play along with.

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

A pair of aviation shears or tin snips will make cutting the cans up really easily.

The patterns on this page might give you ideas on how to work with cans

http://www.aluminouspublishing.com/free_craft_projects.html

I have made metal ivy leaves for decorations before, so it isn't that hard, tho I'm not sure of the best way of approaching the problem. The simplest way would be to cut the numbers out, and fix several flat bits together for the pointer.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Are you allowed rivets? You need a hammer and a bit of hard stuff in the right shape, but you also need to make the rivets, although it might not be that hard if you had a giant fire and a couple of other things.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... not sure whether rivets are allowed. It would certainly be nice. I wonder whether I could set something up a bit like those things for holding paper together, though - the ones with a round thing on one side and two strips of metal, and you put them through the hole and spread the metal strips out. I don't know what they're called to look for a picture. Ah, here they are, brass fasteners (http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=909457&uniqueSearchFlag=true&Ntt=brass+fasteners&x=0&y=0&An=text).

I think giant fire would not go down well with the neighbours or the landlady, for my current purposes, although it would be nice to consider the possibility if the world falls apart.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Ohh, it's an actual practical let's do it kind of thing. Use rivets, definitely. Then you can do it with pliers and a hammer.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

It's a sort of "What if we had no oil left and the world fell apart? Let's do it the way we'd have to do it then" project. So, rivets I can't either make myself or realistically scrounge from waste are probably a no-go, but if you can convince me that they could be made under those conditions then I would consider using rivets that I'd buy from a hardware shop here.

Um, I'm not sure if that makes any sense at all.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

It depends what you also make under those conditions. If you make a furnace capable of melting a fairly soft metal, say copper, then you could probably do it. This (I think anyway) would be feasible given wood, rocks, the ground, and science. Otherwise what would I use...maybe a bradawl and sinew to stitch the pieces together, although sinew would degrade after a while - but you could mend it regularly. Or maybe you could use strips of re-used plastic instead of sinew? If you pick the right plastic you've got quite a few years there, although I'm not 100% sure about UV degradation, seeing as it's a sundial and all.

Mark North on it, so you know where to put it when you've finished doing maintenance on it.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I'd hoped to avoid mining. It's very labour-intensive and while it should be possible with wood, rocks, the ground and science, it isn't going to be very practical for a small party. I may well be wrong about this; further research required on my part, I think.

What about using strips of aluminium drinks cans to stitch the pieces together? Or possibly copper wire. If large electricity infrastructure collapses there should be a fair amount of that around to scrounge. I don't know a lot about various plastics and how much they degrade but it may be worth trying those, too.

Marking North is definitely something I'll be doing.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

You don't need to mine it! You can recycle copper. The rocks & stuff were to make the furnace out of.

Strips of drinks cans = ow, lacerate self, die. Copper wire would work well, but I would rather use that to make electrical stuff out of if the world collapsed.

:D substitute with tin cans

[devvie.livejournal.com]

http://www.kidwizard.com/ThingsToMake/Sundial.asp

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

I have the crap digital camera but not so much the picture taking enthusiasm.

[qadira.livejournal.com]

http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Classroom/Lessons/Sundials/sundials.html click on the 'novice' link :) they use a checker and a nail

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

I have a hazy memory that Alaric had a go at melting down aluminium cans for casting. Maybe a post to London Crafts is in order as he isn't on LJ.

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

I've actually cut up cans with scissors -but- it will ruin the scissors (tin snips etc are just cutters for metal, and work on the same principal.

However I can't think of anything not scissor like that you could use to cut the metal. Which would mean you'd have to do everything with hammering cans flat, careful folding etc.

Maybe the answer to the end of the world is to have a minimal toolkit just in case ...

plastics?

[flannelcat.livejournal.com]

Why aluminum tin cans in particular? Surely there will be plasitc / polystyle to recycle? And pretty much ANYTHING could be used. *Thinks* What about a compact? You could have a small spike, and a hole, and a section in the top of the compact for the spike to be stored in, numbers in the bottom. Open it, set it up - presto! Pocketsundial.


"I'm late! I'm late!" cried the White Rabbit, waiting for the sun to come out from behind a cloud...

Re: plastics?

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

The compact idea is a good one, which I may do anyway. I was thinking of something with a diameter of 30cm to 70cm.

Best read this post (http://www.livejournal.com/community/techipcom/9874.html) for the background.

Why aluminium? Because I'm disgusted at the number of aluminium drinks cans that just get chucked away in London, and because it isn't going to degrade as fast as plastics will, and because many of the drinks cans are the same size/shape. It's easier to forage 20 identical drinks cans than 20 identical plastic bottles, and the drinks cans will probably be easier to work with, too.

Also, shiny silver.

[cyberiantiger.livejournal.com]

Hrm.

I'd be tempted to cut it into sheets, then join the sheets together by folding and hammering them.

With regards making it work, this is just a simple matter of pointing the sticking up bit directly at the north star (requires clear night and not being in london), and having it on a flat surface.

With regards calibration, when the sun is highest is mid day (solar time, not GMT).

How you measure off hours either side I don't know without using an accurate time keeping device.