If you have old tires lying around in your garage, don’t rush to throw them away. Of course, you can no longer drive with such tires, but you can use them to make interesting decorations for the yard and garden. For example, these could be figures of swans with outstretched wings.
What materials and tools are needed to make a swan from a tire?
It is very important to choose the “right” tire for the job. I recommend taking one that has become completely bald during use: it is easier to cut and process. For the same reason, it is better to take a tire with a longitudinal pattern. Another tip: it’s better to choose tires with a cord (a rubberized layer of fabric made of textile, polymer or metal threads) made of nylon, rather than with a steel cord reinforcement (breaker). Reinforced products are difficult to cut, and the edges of the cord may stick out at the cut site, which can injure you while working. Such tires have the word “Steel” in the marking; therefore, it is not present in a tire with nylon reinforcement.
Carefully choose tires so that working with them is convenient and does not pose a risk of injury.
Wash and dry the selected tires thoroughly. In addition to them, you will need for work:
- chalk for marking;
- roulette;
- electric drill;
- drills 3 and 10 mm in diameter;
- sharp knife (with a powerful shoemaker-type blade);
- jigsaw;
- “grinder” with a cutting disc;
- pliers;
- wire for staples;
- a plastic metal rod (or thick wire) 1.2–1.5 meters long;
- paint to give the finished “swan” the desired color.
In addition, you need to draw a diagram according to which you will cut out the swan. You can use a very simple form to get a small flower bed.
You can make a small flowerbed in the shape of a swan using a simple pattern
When working with this scheme, it is enough to make cuts along the lines:
- head and neck;
- tail;
- feathers on the wings.
After this, you need to turn the tire inside out, attach the halves of the head to each other and place a beak made of a piece of plastic between them. Fix the shape with self-tapping screws and paint it matching colors. You will end up with a small round flower bed.
You can plant any low, densely growing flowers in a simple tire flower bed.
A little more complex in execution, but very beautiful, is the original figure-decoration in the form of a swan spreading its wings.
You can make a beautiful swan spreading its wings to decorate your garden
The process of creating a swan from a tire
First of all, you need to mark the tire with chalk. Let's take an R13 tire. Its width is 165 mm, length along the circumference line is 1800 mm.
Product marking
Mark the product as follows:
- At the beginning of work, apply 2 stripes dividing the circumference of the tire in half lengthwise. This will outline the “neck” of the swan.
- After this, draw a “beak”, “head” and “neck” in turn on the tread (outer) side of the tire. From the first line, draw a “beak” symmetrically to the axis with dimensions: length - 8–9 cm, width - 3–4 cm. It should go into the “head”, the parameters of which are as follows: 10–12 cm - length, 7–8 cm - width, from the end of this “part of the body” you need to mark the “neck”, expanding towards the body. Its width at the beginning is 4–5 cm, at the end – 8–10 cm.
- Lastly, mark the “tail”. Its fork is located where the “beak” begins. Draw two parallel lines 8 cm apart and up to 30 cm long.
The process of creating a swan from a tire begins with marking the tire
Cutting process
Now start cutting:
- Cut from the base of the “neck” towards the “head”. A shoe knife can probably handle a heavily worn tire, but a thicker tread (tire element) is best cut with a grinder. If you have a fairly powerful jigsaw, use it after making the initial holes with a grinder.
- Carry out parallel cutting on both sides in small intervals of 4–5 cm. This is much more convenient than cutting out one side completely first, and then the other.
- When the cutting is finished, process all the edges of the resulting parts. If there is a metal cord in the tread, cut off the protruding wires using a grinder. For nylon cord, finishing the edges with a sharp knife is sufficient.
Remember the safety rules! Be sure to wear gloves and use special glasses.
How to turn a tire out and bend the “neck”
So that the cut tire accepts the required form, turn it inside out. Dealing with this is not difficult. To make the task easier, fix the tire with your foot outside rim. The frame is ready. Now you need to fix the neck and head. To do this you will need steel rod, to which the “neck” part will be attached. Do the following:
- Along center line From the middle of the “head” to the base of the “tail”, make paired holes with a drill. Their diameter should be 3 mm, the gaps between them should be 15 cm.
- Prepare wire staples according to the number of pairs of holes. They will attach the “neck” to a metal rod. Immediately insert them into the holes.
- Place the rod from below, using pliers to twist the protruding edges of the brackets around it. Trim off the excess and give the “neck” a characteristic bend.
Instead of a rod, you can use a steel strip. Some masters find it much more convenient. In this case, do not use staples, but bolts or rivets for connection.
The neck of a tire swan is fixed using a metal rod attached to the tire with wire staples
Decoration and installation
Check again to see if there are any sharp edges or protruding wires left on the swan figure. If there are any, clear them.
Paint the figure white or black, a color typical of swans. You can apply a different shade or completely cover the figure with fantasy patterns. It is important that the paint is resistant to wind and moisture. Make the beak red, and screw in large bolts where the eyes should be.
Tire swans can be an additional decoration or an independent decoration
A manufactured and decorated swan can be placed on a whole tire, stump, or simply on the ground, lightly sprinkled with soil for stability.
Using the same scheme, you can create another version of the swan figure. The tire does not need to be turned inside out; it is enough to bend the “wings” further so that they lower to the ground.
If you don’t turn the tire out, the swan figure will turn out even more original.
Photo gallery: figures of swans made from tires and options for their arrangement
A family of black swans made from tires in a natural body of water looks very elegant. The swan can serve as a flowerbed. You can use your imagination and paint the swan in several colors.
They made it then from plastic bottle and putties. Today is a new post - we will make a swan from a tire. I think that many have already seen such swans on garden plots or playgrounds, but they don’t yet know how to make them.
Old car tires that have served their purpose often find a second life, becoming interesting and unusual crafts for the garden. Making an unusual shape from a tire is quite simple. And this decoration of your garden will serve faithfully for a very long time. All you need is to show a little imagination and spend about an hour of time.
The tire swan is a beautiful and unusual bird for your garden. To make a swan you will need car tire, screws and bolts for fastening parts, attaching the swan to the base, fishing line and wire, as well as paint.
When making a swan great value has symmetry. Therefore, before you begin the actual production of the craft, you need to carefully measure and mark everything. For this you will need a ruler and chalk.
It is most convenient to cut marked tires with a well-sharpened knife or an electric jigsaw, and to saw through the cord with a hacksaw. Instead of a hacksaw, you can use wire cutters.
You can make a swan from both the front and back of a tire. The wrong side allows you to make the craft smooth and even, and also gives the product greater strength due to bending. To make a craft from the wrong side of a tire, you just need to turn it inside out (you can’t do without male power).
If, when making a craft, some elements do not want to hold their shape, then you can secure them with aluminum wire or using stretchers made of transparent fishing line.
To make a swan, you need to form its neck with head and tail, carefully cutting top part placed on the side of the tire. In this case, the sides should also be carefully cut out - these will be the wings and back of the swan. The longer part of the resulting strip of the tire is cut out in the form of a beak and bent like the neck of a swan, and the short part is given the shape of a tail. The side round parts of the tire are divided along the circumference into two parts: inner part- thin, external - wider. The outer parts are lowered to the ground and fixed - these are the wings. The inner parts of the tire sides are brought together in the middle of the tire and fastened. It turns out to be the back of a swan. The craft is ready. All that remains is to paint it the desired color.
And this is a real pond with swans:
But let's not stop there either. After all, you can make not only swans from tires, but many other beautiful, funny and useful things.
Three years ago the first flowerpot was cut out of a car wheel. And literally the next request from the relatives was - make a swan. As the proverb says, a promise is waited for three years. It's time to make a swan. I’m sharing my experience, but it appeared here because the swan was in agony and I wanted to give up everything in just five minutes.
The success of the event largely depends on the tire used. The tire, as when cutting out flower beds, must be old and as worn out as possible, that is, be bald and, to make everything completely simple, the cord must be nylon, not metal. With such a tire you can easily work with a knife and not have to worry too much. But apparently, in order to gain experience, I got a slightly worn studded tire made in Japan and with a very good metal cord. Full step by step instructions with photo video is given below.
Instructions on how to make a swan from a tire with your own hands
1. Before work, it is better to immediately wash and dry the tire. Organize workplace in the air in a place where the tire will not become dirty. For work you will need the following tools: an electric jigsaw, the more powerful the better, a jigsaw file with a reverse tooth, a knife, an electric drill with a 3 mm drill, wire cutters - pliers and a metal saw, you may also need a grinder. Materials needed: metal rod 1-1.2 meters long, pieces thin wire, chalk for markings, brushes and paint, black (if the swan is black), white (if the swan is white) and red for the beak.
2. Mark the tire with chalk. It will depend on the marking scheme appearance a carved swan and, most importantly, the amount of effort you will spend on turning the tire out. The main relationships of the scheme are given below. The swan was made from an R13 wheel with a circumference of 180 cm. The length of the neck from the base to the tip of the beak should be more than half the length of the circumference, that is, 95 cm. For orientation, the length of the beak is 9 cm, the head is 10 cm.
3. After marking, we use a knife to punch a hole for winding the jigsaw blade. I spent about seven minutes getting the hole and got a notch from the effort and steel cord on the knife. It would probably be better to drill out the insertion point for the file.
4. Having inserted the file, the sawing process began; it was very different from sawing. Files with small teeth quickly became dull and became clogged with burnt rubber; files with long teeth also lost their sharpness over time. Working at high speeds accelerated the wear of the saw blades due to heating of the rubber with smoke and smell. For environmental reasons, I don’t recommend cutting rubber with a grinder; yes, it’s faster, but the ruined tool, the fumes and the stench are probably not worth it. With the loss of two files, one half of the neck was sawn through. And it was mine blunder! Unfortunately, no one suggested that this should not be done! Now, when sawing the second side of the neck, the rubber bent in time with the work of the jigsaw blade and the process hardly moved; I had to make a stand for the sawing site in order to somehow fix the rubber. The work was further complicated by sharp wires of metal cord from the cut, stinging the fingers through the gloves. But on the other hand, the sawing mode was selected at speeds below average with a saw with a reverse tooth; in this mode, the rubber does not burn and the metal cord breaks reverse stroke file. Correctly you need to cut 4-5 cm sequentially on each side, this will make the work easier and faster. Having cut out the swan's neck, let's work on the tail. The proven sawing process is shown in detail in the video of making the second swan; a little more than half an hour was spent cutting out the workpiece. Moreover, the file used was from the making of the first swan.
5. The length of the tail from tip to base is 25 cm. This length will also make it easier to turn the tire out.
6. It is clear that a swan made from a tire with metal cord is under no circumstances intended for children to play with - only decorative element. Sticking threads of steel cord injure your fingers and act like brushes, catching any debris when touching the ground. The length of the wires can be reduced by processing the edges of the cuts with a grinder.
7. Turn the tire inside out; with such damage, the tire will not resist for long.
8. After 15-20 cm, we drill two holes along the length of the neck next to the center line. We drill holes at the base of the tire to the tail. We prepare brackets from pieces of thin wire about 10 - 15 cm long and insert them into the holes.
Tire is inverted
9. Take the thick one steel wire or a strip 120-150 cm long. In the example, a bimetallic wire from external power wires is used. One end of the rod should be at the base of the tire. We bend this end along the profile of the tire and place it along the neck. From the last fastening on the head to the edge of the rod there should be 9-12 cm.
10. Twist the ends of the staples over the rod and bend them towards the surface. We arch the swan's neck.
Shortening the rod
Each of us would like to have cleanliness and order around his house or dacha. Not everyone manages to achieve this, moreover, to care for the flowers that decorate personal plot, not so simple. Everything requires high costs in time and effort. However, there is a solution to this problem! You can make crafts from scrap materials that would delight you every day and would not require any ongoing care. Very simple and at the same time looks beautiful craft - swan from a tire.
Materials for making a swan with your own hands:
- tire;
- jigsaw;
- drill;
- plate;
- screws;
- water-based paint.
The process of making a swan from a tire:
1) First you need to prepare the tire for work. It is desirable that the tire be bald and without unnecessary bends.
2) It is necessary to draw the swan’s head along its width along the lines, starting with the beak, which is a rectangle 9 cm long and 2 cm wide. We continue, without lifting our hands, to draw the head. It is 2 times wider than the beak, but the length remains the same - 9-10 cm.
3) Smoothly move on to drawing the neck on the tire. You need to draw lines from the head to more than half the circumference of the tire. Often, the cut line of the tire itself does not coincide with the image of the neck, so it is necessary to draw straight lines very carefully so as not to fall into the cut.
4) Where you drew the beak, you need to mark the swan’s tail with a line, measuring 20 cm.
5) The most difficult stage in the work begins: cutting out the drawn key, neck and head. This must be done first with a drill, and then with a jigsaw file, and cut 5 cm alternately on each side.
6) After this, you need to turn the tire out, giving it the shape of a swan. The widest part that remains curves inward, and this is the support of your craft.
7) Without fastenings, the swan’s neck will not hold up, so it is necessary to drill holes in the neck and head and attach the bird’s head to the plate.
8) The swan's eyes are cut out of rubber and screwed into inconspicuous screws.
9) The swan is ready, you can show your creativity and start painting it. To make the craft crystal white, you will have to paint it several times, each time waiting until it dries completely.
If you want your swan to look as natural as possible, you can make a lawn around it, and also put it in another tire, painted the color of water.
This concludes our master class, more crafts for the garden can be seen in
Let's figure out how we will make our swan.
First of all, you need to choose the necessary tire that is most suitable for the job. This means that it is better to find the most “bald” one, for the reason that it will be easier to cut. It is very good if there is a longitudinal pattern on it - this will also greatly facilitate the process.
Some tires have steel cord reinforcement (breaker). It is difficult to cut such a tire; in addition, there may be sharp ends of the cord sticking out at the cut site, which can cause injury both during work and during operation. finished product. Therefore preference should be given old tire with nylon cord (the marking must contain the words “Steel”).
The selected tire must be thoroughly cleaned of dust and dirt, washed and dried - with clean material It's just more pleasant to work with.
We immediately prepare the instrument. You will need:
- chalk for marking;
- roulette;
- electric drill;
- drills 3 and 10 mm in diameter;
- sharp knife (with a powerful blade, like a shoemaker's);
- jigsaw;
- “grinder” with a cutting disc;
- pliers.
From additional materials:
- wire for staples;
- plastic metal rod (or thick wire) 1.2 - 1.5 meters long;
- paint to give the finished “swan” the desired color.
Of course, you need to be patient - the process ahead is quite labor-intensive and complex. It is better to choose a fine day for work in order to carry out the entire process under open air– during the process of drilling or cutting, the rubber burns, which is accompanied by an unpleasant and difficult to remove odor.
Product marking
So, for example, we are working with an R13 tire, 165 mm wide. Its circumference is 180 cm.
Marking should begin by drawing two marks (lines) dividing the circumference of the tire approximately in half; this, in fact, is the length of the “neck” of the future “bird”.
Marking the future neck
Next, the “beak”, “head” and “neck” of the swan are drawn successively on the tread part of the tire. It’s good if there is a visible center line on the old tread pattern - this will greatly simplify the marking. If not, then it will not be difficult to carefully draw it with chalk.
So, from the first mark, symmetrically to the center line, a “beak” is drawn, the length of which is 8 - 9 centimeters, width - 3-4. The “beak” goes into the “head”, 10-12 centimeters long and 7-8 wide.
It is clear that where the “head” ends, the “neck” begins, which gradually expands towards the “body”, at its beginning it is 4 - 5 centimeters wide, by the end it reaches 8 - 10. The marking of the “neck” ends on that line, which divided the tire in two.
The last element of the markup is the “tail”. It is partially already outlined, its fork is what will happen when cutting out the “beak”. All that remains is to draw two parallel lines with a distance between them of approximately 8 centimeters (across the width of the “head”) and a length of about 30 centimeters.
Marking the tail
You learned how to make a swan, now figure it out. Including :) We plant rhododendron in our garden.
Cutting process
Perhaps this is the most labor-intensive manufacturing stage, requiring patience, dexterity and extreme caution to avoid injury. It would probably be useful to remind you that work should be carried out in strong work gloves in order to protect your hands as much as possible.
Remember safety! Do not neglect protective equipment: gloves and special glasses.
The cutting is carried out from the base of the neck to the head.
Depending on the material of the tire and the degree of its wear, this can be done in different ways. A heavily worn, thinned tire may succumb to a shoemaker's knife. Thicker treads can be cut using a grinder, but this process is quite dangerous and is accompanied by a lot of smoke and the smell of burning rubber.
If you have a jigsaw of sufficient power, then after making the initial holes with a grinder, it is better to use it.
Experience shows that it is better to choose a jigsaw file with fairly frequent teeth pointing upward - this will greatly simplify the process. Surgery should not be performed on high speed tool, on the contrary, it needs to be reduced by half.
To insert the jigsaw file into the right place, you can make a slot with a grinder or simply drill holes on the edges of the “neck” with a 10 mm drill. By the way, the work will be greatly simplified if the same holes are drilled at all the turning points of the marking.
It would be a big mistake to cut out one side first and then switch to the other; working with a jigsaw in this case will be complicated by strong vibration that interferes with the process. Better cutting lead both sides parallel, in small areas 4 - 5 centimeters each. You can simplify cutting by resting the tire from the inside against a piece of wood (board), gradually moving it as needed.
We saw along the marked lines with a jigsaw
Having finished cutting, it is necessary to carefully process the edges of the resulting parts. If there was a metal cord in the thickness of the tread, you will need a grinder to grind off the protruding steel wires. If the cord was nylon, it will be enough to trim the edges with a sharp knife.
Turning the tire inside out and giving the “neck” the necessary bend
In order for the “wings” resulting from the sidewalls of the tire to gain the proper scope after cutting, the cut tire must be turned inside out. This will not be much work - a little effort with your hands and the help of your feet will easily turn out a tire that has lost its integrity.
Turn the tire out, it will take some effort on your hands and feet :)
As a result, the “swan” has already spread its “wings”, but its “neck and head” lie limply on the ground - they need to be strengthened and bent properly. For this you will need a prepared steel rod.
First, you need to drill paired holes with a diameter of 3 mm along the center line, symmetrically to it. They are drilled starting from the center of the “head” to the beginning of the “tail”, with a distance between pairs of holes of about 15 centimeters.
We drill paired holes along the neck every 15 cm.
Getting ready required quantity staples from soft wire, which are threaded into the holes made. These brackets will hold a metal rod that gives rigidity to the structure.
We insert these staples into the paired holes made in the swan’s neck
Insert the staples like this
It is better to start laying the rod from the bottom, twisting the protruding ends of the brackets around it with pliers. After cutting off the excess, the “swan neck” can be given a characteristic bend.
Some may find it simpler or more accessible to use a steel strip instead of a rod - this is also a completely acceptable solution. In this case, steel and rubber can be connected using bolts or rivets.
We secure the metal rod along the neck with prepared staples
Essentially, the “mechanical” part of the work is completed.
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