A Rat Is Born

I briefly mentioned my plans for poor Sh@g at work and my boss became suddenly very excited.  He loves a bit of tinkering and backyard chemistry!  I couldn't rust my car because all the panels are plastic, so that would mean a bit of jiggery pokery!  We did some research and found that other people had bought a rusty solution from someone on ebay, but sadly they no longer do it.  Then we found Dulux Australia make a rusty paint.  Sadly not available in the UK.  So off my boss went into his man shed and began playing with paint and iron...  Here is a test strip made out of a bit of old wood...  all we had to do was spray it with lemon and salt and wait.

Then lo and behold one of the samples rusted!  We had made our own rusty wood!  It was also weather proof.  Bonus!

This particular finish was created by simply painting the wood and sprinkling iron filings on the wet surface.  When dry spray with a lemon and salt solution for fast rusting.

So off I went to the bosses house for a day of ratting and tinkering.  As you can see we did lots of prep (we used a sheet and wire wool on the surface)




Then we used an outdoors metal/plastic paint in a fetching NATO green and sprinkled iron filings over the top.  This used about 750g to do the whole bonnet.

Then sprayed with lemon juice and vinegar!  Et viola!  

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Next up was the rear doors... I decided a fetching newspaper collage would be highly effective in my journey to rat-dom, so various newspapers, a brush and a pva-water solution finished off with some varnish I found in the shed.

Next was sticker bombing...  After researching how much stickers were going to cost me.... HOW MUCH!?  I decided to trial making my own using waterproof printable vinyl.  It was an initial success, but after a week and harsh sun, the UV had unfortunately faded them... back to the drawing board!

So after spending less than £15  I now have a semi-rat!  There is still much much more to do, but I am feeling rather pleased with myself about the current rat progress!  As I am driving along I get people pointing and giggling.  When its parked up people come over to have a look and chat to me about it.  I have only met one person who was grumpy about it and told me my stickers were illegal.... erm ok.  

But the general consensus is they love it.  They love the fact that its wacky and they love the fact that its different.  After all, if we were all the same the world would be a very boring place don't you think?

So if I can make someones morning by having them giggle at my car, then I am one happy bunny :-)