Sheet Metal Front Man Mask

Hi everyone, this Instructables is all about making a front man mask from the famous movie squid game. This is my second sculpture and before this. Recently in the past, I made a stainless steel coffee table and unicorn sculpture and the construction is quite similar to that. I would say working with Mild steel is a bit easier than stainless as it's easy to bend and take impressions quite easily. I first go with a paper version of this mask. Making a paper version is a lot more important to do as it gives you an idea how the entire mask is going to look like. Once I completed that paper version I started the work with the metal version. But truly said even if you made a paper version of this, the metal version of that sculpture is difficult to work with because, in the end, it's metal and not flexible like paper. Unlike the old sculpture, in this one, I am going to bend the piece to avoid welding but at the end, I need to weld those individual pieces to hide the seam. I found that building a small poly mask like this is a bit more difficult compared to a big model because it's a bit difficult to grind those small portions. If you have any tips for sheet metal sculpture making then definitely let me know. I am ok with welding but sculpture is a different thing I really need to know the tips from you guys. So definitely share your experience with me. Now Let's jump onto the building part.

Material and tools needed.

For the material, I go with an 18 gauge Mild steel sheet. Since I do a lot of stainless steel work I definitely wanted to go for stainless but the level of difficulty is a lot higher in the case of a mask because it's too small and stainless need a lot more polishing to look perfect, so I dump that idea and go with mild steel instead. I found one more advantage of mild steel is that's a lot easier to work with. For the tools, I guess whatever sheet metal tools possible you can arrange that would be good for you but I didn't have so many sheet metal tools and for this, I use basic tools, and I think if you are a beginner then for this particular project these tools are sufficient.

1. Angle grinder and Die Grinder

2. Carbide scriber.

3. Ruler.

4. Belt grinder ( I just made a homemade version for this particular project).

5. Grinding wheels.

6. Tig welder.

7. Safety equipment.

8. Hammer, mallet.

9. Welding clamps.

10. Pliers

Make sure to use all the safety measures while working don't try to copy my acts where I am not using safety measures properly during the initial tacking process. Argon is not a harmful gas but if you are working in a closed room then it might be dangerous to inhale and cause vomit and other problems, so make sure to do this in a well-ventilated room.

Once the print has been made I cut them with a paper cutter and they all are ready to glue onto the steel. To minimize wastage I glue them in a tightly packed manner. During this one thing, you should take care of is providing an optimum gap for the blade to move and leaving the provisions of blade thickness also. To glue them I use spray adhesive and then stick all of the templates onto the material.

Once the material is glued onto the material I decided to mark the scribe line. The problem with the paper templates is that during cutting with the cutoff wheel they start to burn and you lost the reference and for this particular build it's absolutely necessary to have an exact outline of those pieces. So that's the reason why you need to scribe the lines. Once the marking has been done the pieces are ready to be cut.

After scribing the lines I start the cutting process. Its are always good to trim it down first in a manageable size and then proceed with the cutting process. I use an angle grinder and cut off the disk to do this task. Now since I have scribe line reference that's why I don't have to worry about burning those templates. Just by following those lines, I am able to cut all those pieces. The time taken is around 1.5hr. to do all the cutting process. You can definitely use a laser for this work and all the above preparation can be avoided and I guess that would be a lot more precise and accurate build. Once all the pieces are cut down they are ready to grind out.

After cutting down all the pieces the major work is to grind down all the pieces to the exact marked location where we scribed the lines. Because at this point the templates have no use just to know which side needs to connect with which one. Grinding is necessary because of welding, even though after doing this there are still areas that occur where there is a small amount of gap. The need for grinding is because the cutoff wheel is not capable of making straight cuts, no matter how careful you remain it is still wobbliness in the lines. In that case belt, sander comes handy. I carefully ground these pieces until I reached those scribed lines which were actually needed for this build. Now we have precise pieces ready to join.

Now since this is a small mask compared to my first sculpture I decided to go with bending techniques rather than cutting all the pieces individually and doing this with plire is a bit more difficult and if you do so you are ended up with fillets which we don't require in this build. so to get a sharp bend I started marking out the bent lines with the help of a chisel. for bending you just need an impression of half the depth of sheet you are using. Mild steel is a lot more forgiving that's why it will give you room for correcting your mistakes by bending it twice or thrice on the same location without breaking apart. once the marking with the chisel is done you are easily able to bend the sheet at the required angle.

once the marking is done with the help of a chisel I started the tack weld but before that, I need to bend the pieces at a certain angle so that I am able to make a mask shape. I have 4 different types of plire which I used to bend the sheet at certain angles. Since I have an exact 1 to 1 model with which I am able to take the reference. I first bend the piece close to the shape and then place it onto the paper model to see how close I am and then carry forward. Many pieces are difficult to join together and for that, I use a sheet metal hammer to bring them to the exact location. If I compare this to my previous version of sculpture then I found this one to be difficult because I have many bends in one piece and I experienced that compared to this individual piece is much easier to join and align in proper shape. When pieces come in shape I just tack weld on the fewer sections so that I am able to keep them in the right position.

Once the tack weld has been completed it's time for the full weld. Now welding on mild steel isn't difficult as stainless. But even then to keep the mask cool during the welding I put it on a piece of aluminum plate which sucks the heat a lot faster than any other metal. I also talk about this technique a lot in the past and it really worked a lot. One downfall I found after the welding is that the mask shrinks a little bit but with the help of little stretching with the hands, I am able to bring it to the exact location. To be honest there is nothing too complex in the full weld. Just sit relax and start the welding work. To hold the mask temporarily I use a locking plire so that I am able to weld all sides just by sitting on the chair.

Once the full weld has been completed I start the grinding work. Grinding outside facets is not that difficult because the grinder is able to weld most of the outside periphery, but for hard-to-reach areas, I switch to the die grinder. It's a lot more time-consuming process because of its smaller size and you need to be careful. Also, the tool size is a lot smaller that's why the material removal rate is a lot less. At first, my preference is to do the acid etching and that's the reason I ground it up to 320 grit and then use a scotch brite pad to even out the scratch pattern, but unfortunately, that didn't go well and I have to do the paintwork.

Once the grinding work is finished I hang the mask and apply 3 coats of paint to give it a nice glossy finish. To protect the face from sharp edges I use rubber beading and glue it around the periphery of the mask. For the eye area, I use wire mesh and cut it to the exact shape and glue it onto the eye area. For the extra protection, I laid a thick glue bead which prevents the eye from wire mesh and our mask is ready. I am not going to wear it I am going to mount it onto the wall just for decoration purposes.

Here are some shots of the final version of the mask. I found two different versions of the mask, one I made in the video having cheekbone area downward. If you have any suggestion then definitely leave them down in the comment section.