DIY Bullet Casing Wall art

Recently I've been looking through a lot of my old junk that has been lying around my house for what to keep and what to throw away. when I was sorting it out I came across an old 5gal bucket that I remember stashing away full of empty brass bullet casings from when my friends and I would go out shooting in the hills next to our town. seeing this i wasn't sure at first what to do with It I figured maybe I could go scrap them for a few dollars but after a day or two of thinking and going through Pinterest i found a few ideas that caught my eye, my favorite was making a sort of sculpture of what appeared to be an AR15 made of various brass casings laid out of a piece of what I presumed to be plywood. being a person who enjoys the outdoors, going hiking and shooting on the weekends as well as being a kind of crafty person I wanted to see if I could manage to make something similar.

Just a fraction of what i collected

When I began I knew that the end result would look much better if the brass was cleaned and shiny instead of how they looked now with most of these casing being left outside in the mud quite sometime before I found them in the first place. the brass casings were old looking many of which were cloudy with some kind of oxidation having happened along with a build-up of carbon soot covering most if not all of them from their initial firing. with a little research, I found that most people use what's essentially a rock tumbler filled with polishing media like crushed walnut or corn cob. not having a brass or rock tumbler I decided to wire brush them with a brush bit and my Dremel. toward the end, they actually looked pretty nice but it was quite time-consuming so I got a little lazy about it which might be why they don't all seem perfect.

Once I had the brass clean enough to bond right with the glue I started by drawing a light outline of the firearm that I wanted to mimic on a pre-cut section of half-inch plywood that I stained and sanded lightly. after some time had passed to let the plywood dry I began placing the brass and in small sections starting with the gluing while being careful that no brass had shifted as it dried and cured, before I knew it my project began to take shape although I still wasn't especially to impressed with my first two attempts.

My First (top) and second(bottom)attempt

By putting extra time into my project, letting the glue dry more before placing the neighboring bullet casing and planning my strategy a bit longer before just jumping in seemed to pay off for my third attempt. i can tell by looking at them that I was beginning to get the hang of it. this whole process took about 24 hours with taking in consideration of drying time although with enough shell casing and plywood the idea of making several of these in one-day ist too crazy and in the end these would make great gifts for the outdoors enthusiast or just your friend who enjoys the occasional shooting range visit.

My third and final attempt.