| So far, I've only gotten some of the supplies to make it... however, the supplies I think speak for themselves. It involves a gourd... a large bag full of googly-eyes, glue, and several other things I haven't yet picked up to complete it. To say the least... I went for pure shock value. Ignore the stupid pattern on the gourd though. I dunno... the only place I could find them was Michael's craft store, and for some reason, they put an idiotic pattern on all of them. Doesn't really matter though, since it won't be seen shortly... thank god :P |
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| But... first things first. To be a cache container, it must be capable of being opened, such that it can contain... y'know... stuff. It'd be kinda nice if I had a Dremel, but due to lack of good tools... I'm having to use arguably the worst-quality, low-end hacksaw money can buy. Then again, that's all I had really. I'm not sure if I had already pencilled it onto the gourd or not when taking this picture, but I had made lines as to approximately where I wanted to cut it. I first contemplated the top coming off, but decided against it. If I were to pick it up, that'd be the first place I'd grab it, so I wanted it to be stronger. Hence... a door in the side. |
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| Four quick cuts later, and I was left with a gaping opening in the side of the gourd. For the record... if you've ever wondered what's inside of of these things (when they're dried, anyway. Not sure what it'd look like when they're still alive), it appears to be a honeycomb-like structure. It had completely shattered though. As well... the inside lining of the gourd was a soft, spongy stuff that was about 1 or 2 millimeters thick. You can somewhat see this at the top-left side of the opening. You can see the light-brown "solid" portion that's about 3 or 4 millimeters thick (it's thicker than I thought... excellent), and the 1 or so millimeter thick "soft" portion as being distinctly whiter. THAT, I will be first scraping out with a strap of metal (a hose clamp, actually. It works quite well), followed by sanding the inside of the gourd. |
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| And this would be the end result of a sore wrist, the aformentioned hose clamp, a scrap of E 4-1 in hopes of it scouring faster (yeah, it doesn't. I close my rings too good, so it's basically just smooth :P). As well, I scrubbed the inside with water and a rough rag, to get the last bigger bits of spongy material out from the inside. As of having completed this part, I've thought of an excellent closing mechanism. At first I was contemplating hinges and a latch, with weather-stripping, but I decided that didn't stick well enough, and was too weak. I then thought of using strip magnets along both the door and the opening, but I figured that wouldn't give me a good enough seal. Hence, I will be using that type of magnet strip you see on a fridge door, and lining the other side (haven't decided which side gets the magnet yet) will be covered with a thin metal for it to stick to. That way it'll flex for the cold/etc. BUT... since I don't have that particular supply yet (and don't want to slice apart my fridge)... on with the gluing of googly-eyes! |
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| We see that the gourd is coming along quite nicely, mostly covered with googly-eyes. Many bags and multiple eye-sizes later, and it's still not done! I didn't actually quite anticipate how unbelievably long this process would be, nor how many googly-eyes it would take to cover the entire surface. I've still been debating how to attach the door, but am slowly coming to the conlusion that a hinge-based system may be best... with this cache being forced to somehow become an indoor-only container. This will severely limit the number of locations it can be placed, but it's probably for the best. At least it's less likely to have animal damage from the smell of dry gourd (and probably glue) if it's somehow sheltered. Otherwise, I need to make another trip out to get more googly-eyes before I can continue. Once I'm done with the stem, THEN I'll worry about the door... and finally the eventual placement. You may currently see some tape residue on the eyes from the masking tape used to hold them in place for drying, but that will rub off easily with adhesive remover. |
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