Simple No Welding, Aluminum Wall Art

This might be just me, but I love the look of fish and/or nautical theme for my house. Hi, I am ABCass1, and if you didn't know I am all about fishing and nautical stuff... Check out my other instructables. So I love these themes, but I am cheap. I am not going to spend that type of money to get the average "Hey where did you get that?" And if your on here, you are not the type to settle and just buy for looks. You want to BUILD & CREATE...you want people to visit and to answer that previous question with " I ACTUALLY MADE THAT".

This is why I made this school of fish wall art. All aluminum, no welding together (because I don't own that type of welder and haven't taught my self that skill yet...one day). Anyway, don't worry its not complicated at all. I will give you many ways to accomplish this goal of getting something aluminum on the wall. Not just fish, but whatever your heart desire.

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You will need an idea then...

1. Flat stock sheets of aluminum.
2. Personal safety equipment
3. Degreaser to clean and prep.
4. Marker
5. Optional: software and printer
6. this is to design whatever you want done and be able to print them out to make a master template
7. A cutting tool like...
8. Bandsaw
9. Grinder (Cutting Disc)
10. Jeweler Saw
11. Rotary cutter grinder and polisher
12. A way to hold the pieces to cut like...
13. Bench Vise
14. Clamp
15. Adhesive to stick it all together like...
16. Whatever you decide to do...Test it out on some scrap pieces
17. Low Temperature Welding Rods (I used Harbor Freight's)
18. 2 part Epoxy like...
19. J-B Weld
20. CA Glue
21. I bought this "Special" glue from Amazon that says it specialized in metal adhesion, but to me it was just regular CA glue, it did the trick one the one piece.

You have your idea, you've gathered your supplies, now make a plan of action.

My plan of action may be different from yours, but I will share what I did to hopefully inspire you.

Mine:

1. Supplies
2. Clean
3. Background & fishies
4. Layout
5. Clean and Polish
6. Adhesion
7. Hanging

Clean

My process was clean the paint off the sheet aluminum. The history of the sheet aluminum I got came from my back yard. When I purchased my property, the previous owner had a ton of trash piles hidden under years of pine straw and briers. I had a local business clear this out, and that's when we found some old street signs or business signs that were made from sheet aluminum.

I could of brought it to the scrap yard, but I thought this was too good to get rid of and it would make this project even more memorable.

After I washed and removed the paint, I decided to make the background first. It's basically the place where all my fish were going to be mounted to.

I designed my background to be sleek, fast, and minimal. I wanted this piece to be like the sun refracting through the water while looking at a school of fish.

My Fishies

I am a fisherman, so I wanted my school to be of realistic fish, but I couldn't decide what to go with so I took the silhouette of a sardine and a pogy or menhaden and kind of mesh them together. I always draw a rough sketch with pencil and paper, then take a picture to bring it to my iPad. Using the app Procreate (awesome program check them out) and apple pencil I made my fish. I made it very simple because I knew I am going to have to cut out a TON of these fishies in different sizes. I picked three different sizes for depth and to differentiate size within the school. I printed out these sizes and glued them to a piece of aluminum. I cut them out and marked them as my master's.

Using the master's, I take a marker and trace out a ton of fish. I wanted no piece to be wasted. After marking it's time to mark. My method I used was a grinder and a bandsaw. I would secure the piece to my bench then use a grinder to cut a portion of aluminum sheet into smaller manageable pieces. I would keep working to get it all the way down to individual fish. Then, with the bandsaw, I would carefully clean up the edges of each fish.

Ok, background cut, fishies cut. Time to lay them out. I wanted my school to have a perception that it was swimming away. Laying the background out, I placed the smaller fish toward the front (left) and gradually getting bigger to the back of the piece (right).

Happy with the layout. It was time to clean (again) and polish. Cleaning was done to both sides of each fish with isopropyl alcohol and degreaser. Polishing...I only did the top of each fish, because when I attach it the background I did not want any residue to interfere with the brazing rods. I used a dremel with a cotton buff bit and some polishing compound to polish. Keep it close by, because you will use it again.

By all means I am not expert to aluminum brazing rods or welding rods or whatever they are called. But I can give you some tips from my mistakes I've made along the way.

1. Safety; well-ventilated area, close toe shoes, eye protection, gloves, pliers... its molten metal
2. Practice on scrap pieces, and once you think you have it practice again.
3. Clean both piece thoroughly to ensure adhesion
4. Butane torch will work but it will take forever, Mapp Gas will work, but might be too much. I used camping propane torch which worked for me.
5. Heat evenly, do not sit in one spot, you will burn and melt the pieces.
6. Scrap Brazing rods lightly where the two pieces are joining.

When everything was cooled off and stuck together, I looked for the center of the school. With some help from my wife, I pinch the top portion of the school as to where I think it will balance even. My wife would then mark the back marking the "hanging" center. I took a longer piece of scrap. Bent two 90 degree bends and grabbed my dremel to cut teeth in the middle. BAM! we just made a sawtooth hanger that we can stick to the back of our piece.

Find your spot, and carefully hang your art for all to admire.

This piece is so light, I was able to use one of those push nail picture hangers with the angled disc in the middle. Of course it was in the guesstimate of the hardware's weight limit.

Hey! I hope you enjoyed my Instructables. And if you really enjoyed it...please vote for this in the metal working contest. I really appreciate you stopping by.