Hot glue to make your art project look like it has flowing water. Plese, no!
If you still have some, try a blow dryer at high heat. Craft stores have a heat gun that’s even hotter with less air
Oh that’s a great idea. Yes I still have some hot glued pictures on the wall lol!
I didn’t make this dragon. I found him broken at an estate sale, and only his armature was keeping him in one piece.
Made a base that I painted red and glued him together and onto the base. I attempted to patch some of the larger cracks.
Then I spray painted him with fresh gold paint. I almost managed to keep the base from overspray, so I had to touch that up. And decided to paint the edge of the base gold.
I could probably fuss over him a lot more, but enough!
That’s an album, second pic is an attempt to get Tramp to pose
If any of the patched cracks are in that picture, you did a great job with them.
Plaster?
I wish I had used plaster. I used some air dry clay, which was not very malleable.
Also, thanks! I can see them, but you know how that goes
Grr, I was planning on posting today with pictures of my brand new class set of slide rules, but it turns out that CorelDraw is, yet again, incapable of correctly reading in the most common standard format for drawing files out there. And our laser cutter doesn’t interface correctly with anything but CorelDraw.
On a related note, what’s the best way for making triangular shims, of any width, 3 cm long, and tapering from 3 mm to 0 mm thick? I tried doing those on the laser cutter, too, but it turns out that trying to cut angles that sharp just results in charcoal.
A 3D printer might do a little better there. But if you really need a sharp edge, I’d do it in wood on the laser cutter and then sand it down to regain the edge.
A shear or x-acto knife and straight edge.
2005 Saab 9-5 Arc with 2.3 liter engine. Purchased in 2011 with 75K miles. It now has 250K miles:
Head gasket is blown. Time to replace it. Here’s the engine:
Supported engine on oil pan using jack & wood block, then removed top engine mount and valve cover. Milkshake alert! The oil isn’t supposed to look like that; coolant got into the oil. (Matthew was correct.)
A BUNCH of stuff had to be removed before the cylinder head could be pulled off. These included the DIC & sparkplugs, serpentine belt, belt tensioner, belt idler pulley, thermostat, fuel rail, oil dipstick tube, throttle body, intake manifold, MAF and all air inlet piping (including downpipe), brake vacuum pump, power steering pump & bracket, alternator & bracket, lots of hoses and electrical connectors, etc. etc. etc. etc.
Removed chain tensioner. Long breaker bars were necessary to remove the bolts on the camshaft sprockets. Not sure why they make them so tight:
Removed cylinder head bolts, then pulled cylinder head off of engine block:
Removed camshafts. This photo shows how we removed the valves, springs, lifters, keepers, and valve guide seals:
Cleaning top of engine block:
Sent cylinder head to machine shop. They machined-flat the mating surface, then did a three angle valve job. Here we are reinstalling the valves, springs, lifters, keepers, and (new) valve guide seals:
All the valves-n-stuff are in. Looks nice!
Installed camshafts:
Installed exhaust manifold:
Reinstalling the cylinder head onto the engine block:
Cylinder head is bolted down, and camshaft sprockets are reinstalled:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54167369380_52214fa526.jpg
Precisely set the crankshaft sprocket and camshaft sprockets so the timing was perfect. Reinstalled all the other stuff, and put everything back together:
Added fresh oil and new oil filter. Added coolant. Started right up! Sounds fine, and no leaks. Good for another 250K miles, lol.
Nice work! And, can I have your shop? 
Isn’t that the same job you posted back in September?
Yep. Wanted to show the completion of it.
FYI, it was a real PITA. Saabs have got to be the hardest cars to work on. I don’t think I’ve cursed so much in my life. I was fantasizing about finding the designers, taking them out back, and beating them to a pulp.
It’s a work in progress. I still don’t have interior walls, insulation, heat, or even an air compressor. All of those are in the works.
Following all these major DIY works makes my little box seem. . . little. But I got a story and I’m telling it anyway.
As one does when one gets old, I have gathered a bunch of prescription drugs. They go in a box I made out of cardboard and pretty tissue paper. Some time last week I took my daily pills for my many chronic, old people ailments and soon I thought I was catching some major disease because I kept passing out asleep. On and off all day long. I could not stay awake. The following day I realized I took an oxycodone instead of my blood pressure medication and decided I needed to separate my dailies from my pain meds.
Could have bought one. Could have used the small Amazon box as is or decoupaged it like I usually do with boxes. Instead I decided to go all HAM on it.
Dang! I wanted to say that the herringbone popsicle sticks were fun to make but that jute raffia weave was tedious and I was quite glad I ran out of jute so I didn’t haveta do the whole box that way as I was intending to.
Was going to edit my post to add this info but I’m afraid I’d eff up the picture in the post.
Have you done basketry before?
Nope. I do not know why doing that weave jumped into my head. Residual oxy high, maybe.
Hm. I kind of suspect you were doing it the hard way, but it’s hard to tell without knowing precisely how you did it.
I am absolutely sure I did it the hard way since I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, although it did get easier the longer I did it. But not ever real easy.
I braided the jute but the jute was too thin so each strand of each braid has 3 lengths of jute. Made each strand of each braid individually, then each braid individually AND THEN, on the first side, I glued each braid onto the box AT BOTH ENDS!!! I was a third of the way through before I asked myself what the hell was wrong with me.
The second side took a third of the time as the first, but it was still very, very tedious. Now, aren’t you sorry you asked?