My Own Frankenstein

Once I was rummaging through a junk store and stumbled upon a vintage manual vending machine. It was ugly and scratched up pretty badly, but since it required no electricity and all the parts seemed to work, it came home with me. Later that day a clip of the Jetsons cartoon popped up on my phone and it inspired me to make it into a robot.

I started to gather metal junk and other odds and ends that I had in the art room and began building my own Frankenstein. He got a fresh coat of silver metallic paint inside and out. I cut holes in a metal lunch box with tin snips and covered the sockets with clear red plastic and mounted a light to the inside so the eyes could light up red. With arms of thick copper wire and all the bells and whistles I could find, he started to come alive. The final touch was to use some rusty brown acrylic paint to create the look of rusting places here and there to give him the vintage touch that I love. Once he was filled with all kinds of chocolate and fruity candies, he was finally ready to be moved to the art room the next morning.

My daughter was a student at OSU and had dropped by to start a load of laundry late after everyone had gone to bed. Being extra careful not to make any noise that might wake anyone, she carried her massive mounded laundry basket though the house. Tiptoeing her way towards the laundry room, she rounded the corner to the kitchen and met Mr. Frankenstein’s big red glowing eyes head on. After the laundry finally settled back to the floor, she explained how she about had a real heart attack and that I should warn her next time I decide to build a red eyed monster to scare her to death.

He is really quite cute and harmless in the light of day, my art students christened him with a new name “Leonardo”.

Supplies:

*metal vending machine, metal lunch box, various metal and wood pieces of junk to create arms, face, ears, knobs etc…; tin snips, hot glue gun, drill bits, metal screws, night light kit,

* sanded all the exterior areas of robot and metal parts with fine sandpaper to allow new paint to adhere.

*mask off all parts not to receive coat of paint. Paint with Krylon metallic silver spray paint.

* drill holes in metal lunch box and use tin snips to cut eye shapes and hot glue colored transparent plastic sheet to back of cut holes.

*add body and face parts with metal screws and add night light to the inside of lunch box.