Hobby Tip - Recycle cans for hobby use

I recently wrote a quick post on Instagram about recycling drinks cans for hobby use and decided to copy it over to here to go along with my other little hobby tips.

With a family my size we tend to have a lot of cans go through the house, yes they can go straight into the recycling, but you can get a couple more hobby centric uses out of them too.

All you need is cans, a cutting implement like a knife or scissors, a pair of pliers and a bowl of soapy water.

With a knife or scissors cut the top and bottom off of the can, leave about 1cm of can around the bottom. The tops can be discarded.

With the cans now being open it makes it easier to give them a quick rinse in the soapy water.

Again using the knife or scissors cut flaps all the way around the 1cm strip you left around the bottom of the can.

Using the pliers bend the flaps into the can to cover the sharp edges and your first reuse is done.

These little dishes are great for messy jobs like making oil washes, wethering powders and a multitude of other things. Being aluminium they are easy to clean if you want to, or easily discarded and replaced too. I make a batch once in a while and store them at the front of my weathering drawer.

The can cylinder itself can be used as sheet metal stock. Trim the sharp burrs off to make it a little safer to handle.

Then you can just cut and flatten the metal to use as a hobby material. It takes detail well and can be embossed or put through a corrugating tool etc

Hope that might be useful to somebody.

Take care.