What material?

[SerenityWoodWorks]

Building scallop or segmented pens I see alot of people use aluminum. Is this special? is this from coke cans? any other material people are using?

 

[firewhatfire]

I use aluminum flashing from Lowes. You can get a 5x7 sheet pack of 100 for about $10

 

[TerryDowning]

Coke Cans, as I have them in the recycler already in my garage

Rinse,
Put on leather gloves as aluminum is sharp
Cut top and bottom off
Cut cylinder until you have a flat sheet.
Sand Both sides of flat sheet as it has a protective coating applied that needs to be removed. I use a palm sander and 220 grit

Cut sanded flat sheet to desired sizes.

 

[carpblaster]

Same as firewhatfire showed me,and if u use cans you need to sand all the color away,then sand both sides,firewhatfire showed me it was easer to sand the whole sheet on bothsides or the coke can before you cut them that way you wont have the 4 little corners to catch you,you can easly use a magic marker to mark out what size you need to cut, it sure helped me on my scallops

 

[BSea]

You can also buy sheets from many hobby stores that sell RC cars and planes. It may cost a little more per sheet, but it goes a long way, and you can get several thicknesses of the sheet. It also comes in brass & copper.

 

[Jim Burr]

eBay has really good deals too. I have 3 12x24x.28ga that I picked up for $15.

 

[alamocdc]

Sometimes I use soda or beer cans, but I've been looking for those with thicker aluminum. They are out there. I also look for and use just about any scrap aluminum flats I can find. I recently tore an old extruded aluminum window frame apart just to cut the flats off for segmenting.

 

[wiz9777]

I got some 3' aluminum rods off amazon. They have anything you could think of (sheets, foil, rods, blocks).

 

[Gilrock]

No wonder I've had trouble with mine holding together. No one ever told me to rinse the cans...lol.