A wire mannequin serves for decorative purposes . It is difficult to use it for sewing clothes, since it does not repeat the exact texture of the body.
A wire figure can be used as:
- hangers for clothes at home, in the store, exhibition centers, etc .;
- transformations of the interior.
Manufacturing process
In order to make a mannequin of wire in human height, you must take:
- wire;
- nippers;
- pliers;
- teip tape, corrugated paper or paint for decoration (depending on your wishes).
First, decide which figure your dummy should have. Use your figure as a model or ask for help from others.
The thickness of the wire can be from 1 to 3 mm in cross section. Choose the thickness based on the purpose of further use of the figure. If the load on the product is large, choose a thicker wire. A copy of the thin metal can be folded.
At the same time, calculate your strengths and capabilities. She needs to be shaped. To connect it, you will have to bend the ends with pliers. If it is difficult to form, you can try to slightly heat it on a gas stove. The material will become softer.
If you have a friend with a welding machine (carbon dioxide welding semiautomatic device is required), ask him to help fix the ends. In the latter case, you don’t have to make much effort to connect, and the connection points will look neater.
The amount of wire will depend on the shape and the number of circles around the body. A mannequin with a thin texture and 5 circles around the body (as in the photo) will take about 10 meters.
Measures for a mannequin:
You will need to take the following measurements:
- girth of the neck (on top of the head and at the bottom);
- neck height (length between the upper and lower girth of the neck);
- the length of the shoulder (the point located on the lower point of the neck along the shoulder to the protruding bone);
- girth of the hands (on the protruding bone on the shoulder, through the armpit)
- further - the coverage of the chest, under the chest, at the waist.
Decide how long your craft needs. If it’s up to the hips, then you will need a hips and one more coverage - in the middle between the waist and hips.
Length. To take this measure you need help. Starting point of measurement: divide the right thigh in front in half. From this point on the line of grasp of the hips there will be a start. Then - we lay a centimeter to the girth under the chest. Next, we drag a centimeter to the mammary gland, record a measurement and draw a line to the middle of the shoulder. We fix it.
We take the centimeter further - along the back line to the middle of the right thigh at the back (to the line of the hips). Remember all the segments between the girths on the back. And fix the total length from the start point to the end.
Now cut the wire. Segments are made 2 cm longer than the control measures to allow for twisting.
First of all, from the girth of the chest, under the chest, waist, hips and middle, we make ovals. We connect each oval by twisting the ends with pliers. We make circles on the girth of the hands and on two lengths of the neck.
We cut two pieces of wire, the length of which is equal to “neck length + shoulder length + 2 cm for connection”. It is necessary to bend it at the point of the lower girth of the neck. To make the line exactly repeat the human contour, attach this segment to the person from whom the measurements were taken.
It remains to cut off two more pieces equal to the full length of the mannequin in front and behind. Next, you should texture bend the pieces, highlighting the hips, chest. Check the resulting bends with the shapes of the model.
All the resulting parts should be interconnected with a thin wire. You can use a soldering iron with a power of 100 W or more to solder parts. Flux is used depending on the composition of the metal thread. When using active flux, the joints at the soldering sites are washed with water so that the product does not corrode.
The finished mannequin is painted, wrapped with teip tape or decorated to the taste of the master. You can decorate with flowers, beads. Metal looks beautiful when artificially “aged” using two-component silver or bronze paint.
Often additional accessories are made to the figure. For example, a skirt, hats. It will take imagination and patience. The work is painstaking, but the result will be pleasing for a long time.
He can have arbitrarily many girths: the more of them, the product is “denser” and heavier. You can make only three girths - on the chest, on the waist and on the hips, and make much more lengths.
The gaps between the wire can be closed with its own pieces of the same thickness or thinner, you can wrap the resulting mannequin with threads. Design depends only on your capabilities and imagination.
Mannequin stand
The resulting mannequin can be used without a rack, with a rack, suspended from hooks, etc.
For the rack, an iron pipe of small diameter, a round stick or another, iron strong ring, into which the pipe will be inserted, is taken. To make the figure stable, a tripod is made below.
You can buy a rack ready or take the bottom of the old unnecessary hanger. Ideally, if such a rack will be welded by a specialist specifically for your dummy.
Masters suggest using an inexpensive metal-based lampshade for attaching the rack. Having disassembled the lampshade, leave only the metal frame. We insert it into the middle of the mannequin from the wire and fasten the rack to it.
For decorative purposes, small figures are made of wire in the form of a miniature doll. For a miniature copy, you should take a thin wire with a cross section of not more than 1 mm, since its details are small. A large cross-section will interfere with the performance of the figure, the resulting product will be massive.
In fact, the manufacture of a mini mannequin does not differ from the usual one described above. Take the doll as the basis for work. If any bending does not work out, it will be possible to attach the wire to the doll's body in order to repeat it according to the pattern.
A more detailed article on how to make a mini-mannequin with your own hands here.
