Robot Critters Refurbished

It’s one thing to gather metal scraps of one kind or another, weld them together to make a yard critter, and paint them. Then you enter a whole new stage of trying to repair what sun, wind, rain, and changing temperatures does to them.

We have one “robot” on either side of our garage door. This one is the “Cleaning Robot.” He has a fireplace ‘dustpan’ in one hand and a fireplace ‘broom’ in the other. His paint was holding up all right, but his gloves were almost completely rotted off. His bow tie had turned pink and brittle, and he needed a good cleaning. I brought old gloves from our shop, stuffed them full of plastic bags and then we did a combination of putting screws through the gloves and then wires to hold the fingers. I ordered a new child’s bow tie. Now he’s spiffy for another spring and summer.

 

The “Farmer” robot is on the other side of the garage door. He also needed new gloves, and his bandana was almost completely gone. I couldn’t find another bandana in any color other than pink yet, so I used this piece of cloth in the interim. He loves it when people come to our house, enthusiastically waving, and saying, “Hi!”

Project Refurb Continues

I always walk around the yard while taking the doggies out. Lately I’ve been deciding which of our yard art pieces need refurbishing, like the gloves, bow tie, and bandana on the two robots in the previous post. I thought you might enjoy seeing a few of the pieces I looked at today –

I call this critter the “Crow.” I like him because of his simplicity. He is attached to a big boulder to the side of our driveway, watching all comers.

 

We found a picture on the net and did our best to make one similar. “Dog with Bone” has a moveable tail and moveable head, so you can ‘face’ him any way you want. He has a spot where the paint is peeling on the left end of his bone, but I think I’ll let that go for now.

 

A group of emus is called a ‘mob.’ We have these four just off the driveway and two more on our back deck. They need their faces washed, but I think that’s all.  You can also see part of our “watermelon” propane tank in the background on the top left of the picture. :0)

 

This is our flying pig. He hangs from a sturdy line from a tree in the driveway. He turns and twists in the breeze. He’ll probably have to fall down for me to refurb him. He’s too hard to get up there!

 

This is the gazing ball I covered with a mosaic design a couple of years ago. It needs a good scrubbing with a brush, but it looks okay, otherwise.

 

 

Our “Guard Dog” is bolted to the big boulder on the other side of our driveway. He is made entirely of cut out metal, wire, some tubing, and ball bearings for his toes.

 

“Mama and Baby Snail” are made from rolled up strap metal and some beads for eyes.  I think they mainly need washing.

 

The “Peacock” has lost a lot of his flat beads from the spokes the make up his tail feathers. I’ll try to find the beads, or replacements for those.

 

The “Pop-a-Doo” Bird seems to be holding up pretty well. I spray him heavily with wasp spray, as they like to nest around his neck for some strange reason. His beak needs a good scrub.

 

I may need to paint the shovel part of this shovel bird this year after a good scrub. The birds like to eat seeds off his back.

 

 

The “Sitting Bird” needs some paint on his legs, as well as a repaint of his chest, plus a good cleaning first. I’m going to put a rod in the planter so that I can sit him on the corner of the planter behind the rod. He tends to blow over in a hard wind.

 

This wonderful stone turtle is from a Mexican treasures shop in Van Buren, Arkansas. We bought him several years ago. He was plain, without eyes or any coloring on his shell. You can see he needs a good cleaning and a refurb of the paint on his shell.

 

The turkey just needs a good scrub.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the partial tour of the ‘stuff’ we’ve made. You can see that I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Our “box turtle” is in the shop now. His eyes were falling off and his paint is peeling. I’m going to start on him next.

 

New Gloves for Everyone!

In my travels around the yard recently, I noticed that the robots on either side of our garage door needed some refurbishing. Each had a pair of gloves that had almost rotted off with the combination of wind, sun, and rain. I got a couple of pairs of old gloves from the shop, laboriously stuffed the fingers and palms of each with plastic bags, and they sat on our table waiting. Yesterday was the day. My husband did most of the work on getting the new gloves on once I removed the old ones with a combination of a screw and wire. I then added duct tape around the top of each to prevent wasps from building nests inside the gloves. (Lesson learned the hard way.)

This one is a “Cleaning Robot.” He has a broom in one hand and a ‘dust pan’ in the other, ready to do a quick clean-up when needed. His bow tie used to be bright red. Since his has really faded and is also rotting, a new one is on the way. He is made from a combination of an old propane tank and scrap metal, plus an old set of fireplace tools.

 

This is our “Gardening Robot.” He’s ready to help with mowing, planting, filling holes, mulching, and more in his tennis shoes and overalls and heavy gloves. He wears a bandana around his neck. We’ll get him a new one at Yeager’s today, I hope.  He is made from an old propane tank, a metal box for his head, tube iron and scraps.

Can You Smell It?

“Falling Rain” – quotesgram.com

 

We had a bit of drizzle, and sprinkling on the windshield as we went to town for errands yesterday. Then we had a more serious rain late yesterday afternoon. The intermittent rain is still going today. We really need it. We’re in a drought and under a burn ban. I’m not even complaining as I stand outside in the rain waiting for the doggies to take care of things. :0)

I’m especially grateful because we have an excellent chance of a cold front with rain that MAY change to flurries this weekend! A double gift from Mother Nature for sure if we get more good rain PLUS a pretty, white Christmas with snow that will look pretty, but not cause problems on the road. The very BEST kind of snow!

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Yesterday I consolidated two notebooks of low carb recipes into one, plus punched holes into a whole stack of recipes I printed from the net and put them into the notebook. Now I have all the loose recipes in one place, organized so there is hope of finding the one I’m looking for again! I have the notebook on the kitchen desk along with the most used low carb recipe books.

Today’s project is moving my warm weather clothes OUT and my cool weather clothes INTO my closet.

 

balletpumpsandroses.com

 

If I finish that, my poor little duck and hedgehog yard ornaments are awaiting possible repair after our 81 pound lab puppy, Amber, bit off beak and nose respectively. I have some pieces I retrieved from the yard, along with the critters, but I’m not sure I have enough for a full repair. Fingers crossed.

I hope that your day is productive and fun.

Decoration Changes & Refurbishment

This is the ‘old style’ attachment method we used when we started making metal decorations for our mailbox. We simply cut a flat piece of metal and welded it onto the side of the piece after drilling a bunch of holes in it.

Since then, my husband designed a much stronger method of attachment – a square metal rod with L-shaped attachment piece welded onto it, and then attached to the decoration. He was upset that some of the decorations we put up this past year still had the ‘old style’ attachment and wanted to change them.

We had gone through the decorations, figuring out which ones we wanted to keep, replacements we wanted to make, and new pieces in the works. The turkey for Thanksgiving and the Rabbit and Egg for Easter needed the new style attachments.

My husband cut off the old style and then made new attachments and welded them onto the two pieces. The process of welding did a number on the paint of the decorations, so I’ve been trying to blend in the new attachment bar into the design on one side and refurbish the pieces as a whole.

 

This is the front of the refurbished Thanksgiving turkey. You have to look carefully to see the black rod sticking out to the left.

 

 

This is the back, where you can see the rod going all the way across the piece. I blended it in as best I could.  I also added googly eyes to both sides this time, rather than just having the hole in a white circle.

Here’s a pic of the old piece to compare.

 

The second piece was the Rabbit and the Egg for Easter.

 

 

My husband had a hard time welding the attachment rod to this piece. There was a LOT to try to blend in. I had fun adding Snow-Tex to his cotton tail this time.

 

Here’s the back of the piece, with the rod blended in as well as I was able. I didn’t put Snow-Tex on this side.

Shovel Bird Refurb Project – Take 1

 

We made a shovel bird for our good friends, the Taylors, and gave it to them several years ago. Mother Nature has done a number on him, as she always does, making it necessary for some serious refurbishment. I’ve taken pics of the sweet bird BEFORE I start cleaning and repainting him.

 

One of his googly eyes fell off, and his beak looks like it was never painted.

 

 

Even with using rust resistant paint and then spraying on several coats of polyurethane, there are patches of rust. Of course, he’s dirty, also, having stood in the garden, weathering wind, rain, sun, and snow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing I did was pull the other eye off. Then I spent a long time cleaning him from top to bottom with Simple Green. Now I’ve painted the first coat of paint.

It will probably take two or three coats of paint, then I’ll use a silver pen to do the ‘feathers.’ I’ll paint on some polyurethane, rather than using just the spray, for as much protection as possible, and finally, I’ll glue new googly eyes on him.

I’ll take pics when he’s ready to go back to the Taylors.