How to make a fly curtain from plastic bottle caps
Accessories
- 2000 plastic bottle caps
- 75 m rope
- board 80x920x12 mm (hxwxd)
- shelf 80x2200x12 mm (hxwxd)
- 60 screws 3x16 mm
- 2 screws 4x30 mm
- newspaper, colour advertising brochures
- wallpaper paste
- drill 3 mm
- tape
- knife
Procedure
Prepare a sturdy board on which to fix the strings of plastic bottle caps: fix 30 screws at a distance of 3 cm. Fix a 4x30 mm screw at each side of the board on which the board can be hung above the doorway.
Glue the newspaper pages with the wallpaper paste to create a surface similar to the size of your doorway, say 90x220 mm. On this created surface, draw the outline of your fly curtain image. Glue coloured paper snippets from the advertising brochure to the surface to indicate where you want which colour. Tape the surface to the board.
Starting from the left or the right, lay the shelf on the surface and lay out one string of plastic bottle caps on the shelf following your outlined image. Drill holes in the selected bottle caps. Remove the sharps with a knife and lace the bottle caps to one string. Fix the string to a screw on the board. Repeat this for the next string and this way make your way over the other side of the surface.
Do final adjustments regarding colours and string lengths. Draw holes in the middle and the side of 30 white plastic bottle caps. Cut out the side-holes with a knife. Fix the bottle caps just above the screws on the board.
The result might look like this: Fly curtains made of plastic bottle caps
Rationale
Type of rope
I'm using polyethylene, uv-stabilized rope now. I tried hennep rope but this is too prone to tear and wear. For Wave 2 I've used nylon fishing line (0.60mm). This is nearly unvisible and holding up fine - capable of stretching nearly 2cm and still returning to its original length, but I'm still curious if this will stand the test of time.
