Original post by Bruce Hirst
This process can be used to make panels with any design you want.
Here are the things you need:
- Aluminum foil
- Elmer's white glue
- Brown liquid shoe polish
- Clear tape
- Two CD cases
- Modeling clay
- A piece of pipe or rolling pin
- A ballpoint pen
- Printed plans from the building plans page
(look in the bottom left of the page for "Egyptian Panels")
Put 4 small dots of clay on the back of each CD to keep them from sliding around.
Place the CD's about 3 inches apart and place a wad of modeling clay between them
(the kind of clay that doesn't dry).
Use the piece of pipe to roll out the modeling clay.
The CD's are used as a guide to keep the top nice and even.
You can also use a rolling pin for this, but wash it off good after you use it.
The modeling clay has an oily residue that's kind of hard to get off.
Polymer clay works just as good as modeling clay and it's a little cleaner.
Cut a piece of aluminum foil large enough to cover the clay with plenty of extra room around it. Try not to wrinkle it when you're cutting a square.
Roll down a piece of aluminum foil on top of the clay. It doesn't matter if the shiny or the dull side is up when you lay it down. The shoe polish seems to stick pretty well to either side of the foil.
I've included a few designs on the building plans page. Look in the bottom left corner of the page labeled "Egyptian Panels" and print this page out on your printer.
Place the design over the clay. You can kind of feel where the clay is underneath the paper. The clay acts as a support for the design.
Tape the paper down on both sides to hold it in place.
Folding the edges over and gluing them is the hardest part of the whole process. The trick is to not get glue everywhere while you're doing it. If you do, you can always touch up the edges with more shoe polish.
There are two separate door halves shown here. To get the doors to stand on their own, you can glue pieces of clear plastic onto the bottoms of the doors. This will allow them to be positioned or removed if you don't want them to show.
Trace over the design using a cheap ballpoint pen. It's better if you have a pen with a fat round ball point. The fine ball point pens will tear through the paper.
It's important that you press lightly, just enough to draw on the paper. If you press too hard you will tear through the foil!
I used a ruler for the straight lines and did the other lines freehand. It doesn't matter if your tracing job is sloppy, the design will still look good when you are finished.
Remove the paper design and pour some glue onto the foil. You don't need a lot of glue, just enough to give a thin coating over the design.
The glue will settle down into the grooves and dry there, making the dents in the foil permanent.
Leave this a couple of hours or until the glue dries completely. In the meantime, roll out another piece of clay and work on the next design on the sheet.
Once dry, remove the foil and flip it over so the glue is underneath.
To stain the foil, I'm going to use "Kiwi" brand liquid brown shoe polish used for leather. It has a built in brush on the end, just push it down and rub the shoe polish all over the foil.
Be sure to spread it all over the foil and cover all the area shown past the border of the design. The shoe polish will flow down to reveal the design. Let it dry completely!
Once dry, remove the foil and flip it over so the glue is underneath.
The piece we have made is for one half of the large door. Since the doorway opening is 1" x 3", we need to make the door smaller so it will fit.
I'm making these doors 1/6" short both ways so the doors will fit correctly. You can make the doors out of cardboard or foam core board.
Put a thin layer of glue on the card board and wrap the foil around it. Trim up the edges, put glue on them and fold the foil over the edges.
Folding the edges over and gluing them is the hardest part of the whole process. The trick is to not get glue everywhere while you're doing it. If you do, you can always touch up the edges with more shoe polish.
There are two separate door halves shown here. To get the doors to stand on their own, you can glue pieces of clear plastic onto the bottoms of the doors. This will allow them to be positioned or removed if you don't want them to show.
However, I chose to pin the doors in place using pieces of wire.
To do this, first you have to drill a couple of small holes in the side of the doorway.
Then you glue a couple of wires into the holes using super glue. Use very thin wire. The wire looks thick here because I enhanced the photo to show the position.
Place glue on the wires and shove the door on. When the glue dries, the door will be able to hinge on the wire.
For the smaller doors, use the smaller design on the sheet. The small doorway measures 1" wide by 2" tall, so you want to cut the door 1/16" smaller and it will fit properly.
Apply the foil embossed designs to the smaller doors as well.
When finished, you will have the doors on the Pylon temple.
Making Your Own Designs
Making your own designs is fairly easy. I suggest using 1/4" graph paper to draw it on, so it will be the right size to fit with the blocks.
Draw your design in pencil. Pencil works the best because you can erase your mistakes, and you can see what you've already traced over in ink pen.
Trace over the design using a cheap ball point pen (follow the article above).
This time I'm using black shoe polish. Black shoe polish works great for making a steel door.
I also found that simpler designs work better. The texture around the cross is almost too busy. A simple outline would have looked better.
Also, small circles make great rivets for doors and steel plates. This technique would work nicely for sci-fi steep plates and hatches. Imagine making a large foil section with overlapping plates and rivets, then wrapping it around a cardboard tube for a rocket fuselage.
Copying Designs From Books
- Photocopy the design from a book. Many copiers have the ability to enlarge and reduce, so you can get the design the size you want.
- Scan the image and use your computer software to size the image to the size you need. You can also lighten the copy this way, so you can see where you've traced.
I'm using the second method here. I've scanned the image, and used my computer software to make it black-and-white and also to lighten the image up. Try to pick a design with not too much detail. The more detail you have, the busier the design will be.
Since this item was much larger than the other things I had made, I'm using a rolling pin to roll out the clay. I'm using polymer clay which doesn't have an oily residue.
I've covered the clay with foil, and taped the paper design on top of it. The clay is thin enough that it's not a problem to tape the edges straight to the table. Be sure to put the foil dull side down or the india ink (shown below) won't stick to it.
Once you've drawn the image, remove the paper and spread a thin layer of glue onto the foil. Let it dry completely.
Once dry, remove the foil and turn it over to reveal your raised image in the foil.
For this experiment, I'm going to try black India ink. This is the same type of ink artist use for fancy lettering with calligraphy pens. It should be easy to find at any art or craft store.
Paint a layer of ink over the foil and let it dry overnight.
When it's completely dry, use steel wool to scratch off the excess ink. It's up to you how much ink you want to take off. Don't push too hard or you'll tear through the foil.
The piece of foil can then be wrapped around a piece of cardboard for a large panel door or wall section. Looking back, I should have picked a different photo for this example. The gray steel color just doesn't go with the Egyptian theme very well.
Using India ink on foil is not my original idea. I believe it's from a school craft project that has been around for years.
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