Ryan McFarland

What ever happened with the salmon that i offered to do for the Petersburg Mental Health fund raiser? I finished it a little over a week ago. Here are some project progress photos and notes.

The back of the fish had a fairly large access panel cut out of it. You can see that i put in one of the eyes first. That’s from a pair of binoculars that fogged up or were bent out of whack.

It usually does not take long for me to start bleeding.

…and once i start bleeding it just seems to spread. This is about the time that i talk myself into doing something different for a few hours.

So i drilled through the front side of the fish and ran LED lights to the openings. I then wired a button to the top so when pressed the LEDs light up. But they were really bright so i needed to figure out how to dull them a little. I used some pieces from a Coleman stove repair kit and cut rubber pieces from remote control buttons to give the spots different colors. The silver piece you see attached is from the reflector inside a halogen lamp.

I decided to armor my salmon with metal plating. I used some aluminum sheets from some siding scrap that i found a few years ago, a silver colored piece from the inside of an old laptop screen, and copper from a roll of copper banding that i found under the house a few years ago. It took a bit of experimenting to find the right adhesive for the job. I had to clamp, rubber band, or tie each piece in place for an hour or so which really slowed down the work.

I then covered the part i had completed with masking tap in preparation for spray painting the fins and head silver.

At this point all i had to do was get the fins to stay on well. I don’t have a good photo of the whole fish but Mike Tozzo took a few for me at the opening.

The little pieces sticking out from behind the halogen light reflector are radiator fins from the inside of a stereo amplifier. Not only is the fish mostly made from recycled materials but the materials are recyclable.

I found out the other day that my salmon will be on display in Wild Celery, an art gallery, framing studio and jewelry store.