Sheet Metal Front Man Mask
Introduction: Sheet Metal Front Man Mask
Hi everyone, this Instructables is all about making a front man mask from the famous movie squid game. This is my second sculpture and before this. Recently in the past, I made a stainless steel coffee table and unicorn sculpture and the construction is quite similar to that. I would say working with Mild steel is a bit easier than stainless as it's easy to bend and take impressions quite easily. I first go with a paper version of this mask. Making a paper version is a lot more important to do as it gives you an idea how the entire mask is going to look like. Once I completed that paper version I started the work with the metal version. But truly said even if you made a paper version of this, the metal version of that sculpture is difficult to work with because, in the end, it's metal and not flexible like paper. Unlike the old sculpture, in this one, I am going to bend the piece to avoid welding but at the end, I need to weld those individual pieces to hide the seam. I found that building a small poly mask like this is a bit more difficult compared to a big model because it's a bit difficult to grind those small portions. If you have any tips for sheet metal sculpture making then definitely let me know. I am ok with welding but sculpture is a different thing I really need to know the tips from you guys. So definitely share your experience with me. Now Let's jump onto the building part.
Supplies
Material and tools needed.
For the material, I go with an 18 gauge Mild steel sheet. Since I do a lot of stainless steel work I definitely wanted to go for stainless but the level of difficulty is a lot higher in the case of a mask because it's too small and stainless need a lot more polishing to look perfect, so I dump that idea and go with mild steel instead. I found one more advantage of mild steel is that's a lot easier to work with. For the tools, I guess whatever sheet metal tools possible you can arrange that would be good for you but I didn't have so many sheet metal tools and for this, I use basic tools, and I think if you are a beginner then for this particular project these tools are sufficient.
1. Angle grinder and Die Grinder
2. Carbide scriber.
3. Ruler.
4. Belt grinder ( I just made a homemade version for this particular project).
5. 215
Grinding wheels.
6. Tig welder.
7. Safety equipment.
8. Hammer, mallet.
9. Welding clamps.
10. Pliers
Make sure to use all the safety measures while working don't try to copy my acts where I am not using safety measures properly during the initial tacking process. Argon is not a harmful gas but if you are working in a closed room then it might be dangerous to inhale and cause vomit and other problems, so make sure to do this in a well-ventilated room.
Step 1: Cutting Template and Gluing
Once the print has been made I cut them with a paper cutter and they all are ready to glue onto the steel. To minimize wastage I glue them in a tightly packed manner. During this one thing, you should take care of is providing an optimum gap for the blade to move and leaving the provisions of blade thickness also. To glue them I use spray adhesive and then stick all of the templates onto the material.
Step 2: Scribing the Outlines
Once the material is glued onto the material I decided to mark the scribe line. The problem with the paper templates is that during cutting with the cutoff wheel they start to burn and you lost the reference and for this particular build it's absolutely necessary to have an exact outline of those pieces. So that's the reason why you need to scribe the lines. Once the marking has been done the pieces are ready to be cut.
Step 3: Cutting the Pieces
After scribing the lines I start the cutting process. Its are always good to trim it down first in a manageable size and then proceed with the cutting process. I use an angle grinder and cut off the disk to do this task. Now since I have scribe line reference that's why I don't have to worry about burning those templates. Just by following those lines, I am able to cut all those pieces. The time taken is around 1.5hr. to do all the cutting process. You can definitely use a laser for this work and all the above preparation can be avoided and I guess that would be a lot more precise and accurate build. Once all the pieces are cut down they are ready to grind out.
Step 4: Grinding and Straightening the Pieces
After cutting down all the pieces the major work is to grind down all the pieces to the exact marked location where we scribed the lines. 220