This summer we went to an art fair which is where I first discovered bolt people. Pretty much exactly like it sounds, people... made out of bolts. Looked easy enough, the bolts, nuts, washers, and cotter pins are easily found at any hardware store. The violin bow is part of a bike spoke...ya, I have a few lying around. The heads were a little more difficult, I ended up finding these two at a specialty decorative wrought iron place downtown, then was able to order 1" ball bearings online for subsequent heads. Here is my first attempt from several months ago that I made for Maria.
It was a hit with Maria so I thought I could do several others for Christmas gifts. They ended up taking a little longer than I thought they would but it was fun to turn the orange garage into Santa's workshop for a few days (insert joke about Santa's elf who wants to be a dentist).
Maria's mother Linda- the violinist
Maria's dad Pat- the photographer
J Paul- the cellist (ps. how should we get him to you???)
I was planning on making a pianist for my sister but she conveniently reminded me before Christmas that she had always wanted a set of chimes. I can remember when she was younger she would set up the chimes on a broom between two chairs and play them by herself...her husband said he wouldn't be surprised to catch her doing this with the new set.
I started by borrowing my mom's set to use as a template. My dad has a very good relative pitch and had been complaining about this set so I pulled out my old digital guitar tuner and tested each of the chimes. Sure enough, several were more than 50 cents off. Using the tuner I was able to see about where each of my cuts should be in relation to my mothers chime. I would cut long then grind it down for fine tuning. They didn't come out perfect, but pretty dang close.
Mia helping out.
Mia already had some christmasy fabric lying around so I was able to quickly sew up a carrying case.
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