Me and my little sister did some late night crafting yesterday and ended up making some pop can lights for room decor! I made Jean-Clawed and she made Belle Bottom! Eventually, we’ll have one done of all the characters!
crazy to think how for most of human history cans didn’t exist. Like they’re so ubiquitous as to be uninteresting now, but at one point we had jars and pots and root cellars and such but absolutely no shelf-stable metal cans. Take a moment to appreciate your cans today, they are so useful and handy.
is there anything useful that can be done with soda cans? i've seen a couple of art projects but I wanted to do something more useful.
There is! So there's a couple of different things that can help your farm but I'm going to explain how to make aluminum pop cans into roof tiles. This requires a few tools, but I found it to be simple. If you don't have the tools right now, you can always prepare the cans as shown in the first step, and then use them all when you get the tools needed.
Tools needed:
Staple gun
Circular Saw, or Router, or Saw with Dado Blade
Tin Snips
Square
Chisel
Hammer
Drill and bits
Gloves
Materials:
Uncrushed aluminum cans
2 pieces of 1x6 hardwood board
Two 1-foot 5/16" metal square rods
Step one: Gather cans
A 24 inch x 24 inch area will use from 36 to 50 cans depending on the vertical spacing and shingle style, which means you'll need 900-1250 cans for a 10 foot by 10 foot area. Remember to rinse your cans before storing them to prevent bugs, or better yet, prepare your cans as they're produced so that you don't get overwhelmed by the amount of work needed, and to save space.
Step two: Cut them into little sheets of metal
This gets sharp, so wearing gloves is important. Use tin snips (I found scissors dulled too quickly) to cut the top off the can at the seam where the can bends. Cut down the center to the bottom and then cut off the bottom of the can. You now have a rectangular piece of aluminum sheet metal.
Step Three: Cut your wood into a template
Use a pencil and square to mark the 1x6 board to the measurements in the picture. This should be a hardwood so it holds up to the abuse. Using a circular saw cut the receiving die (negative?) grooves as shown above. You are cutting it so it looks like the grey, and the white will be the next step.
Step 3: Attach Square Rods to the Template
Drill holes in each end of the two 5/16" square rods and screw them to the upper board so they are lined up with the channels on the negative die . These rods come in 1' lengths at a local hardware store.
Step 4: Clean and Add Hinge
Clean up the grooves with a chisel and hammer if needed.
Add a small hinge or just staple a can (see picture) as a hinge to keep the die halves lined up.
Step 5: Insert Pre-Cut Aluminum and Smash It
Insert aluminum and release the power of the beast. There are two types of shingles made here by placing them in one or the other can slots on the die. The shingle with the two ribs will give the strongest cover by providing two layers of aluminum in the overlap. The shingle with the two ribs and a lip will cover more area but gives only one layer of aluminum.
Step 6: Start Your Roof With the Drip Edge
Once you have a few small bundles of shingles, take them, your tin snips, some extra unpressed aluminum rectangles and a staple gun to the roof. Loosely fold the aluminum rectangles in half and staple them overlapping on the bottom and side edges of the roof. On the side edges, make a small 90 bend for the shingles to hook onto; see the picture. Make sure the overlap is correct on the side drip edges.
Step 7: Attach Shingles
If you were doing this on a big roof where you had to walk around, avoid stepping on the shingles by working from one end of the roof up to the caps and then across. When attaching, staple the shingles about 1/3 of the way down from the top; you'll need two staples per shingle. I highlighted the yellow square where a mistake was made. These staples should be under the fold, not exposed. This had to be redone after the pictures were taken.
Step 8: Cap the Top
Fold a lip lengthwise on some more aluminum rectangles so they have a round exposed edge and staple + overlap them across the ridge. The last cap piece will need caulking on the staples unless you try some tricky folding.
So there you have it. How to make durable roofing shingles using only aluminum cans. Here's a video of the tiles being made, but not how to make the tools.
