Weave a Basket from Used Drum Heads

Step 4 Make the Strips

Once again here, it is best to have a big head to cut. There are two ways to do this:

The first is to cut individual strips that will fit around the circumference of the basket. These can then be stapled, taped or glued at the ends to keep them solid. The circumference of my basket was about 22", so I used my second head to cut 1" strips from. Since it was a two-ply head, after cutting a strip the two layers of acrylic separated, giving me twice as many strips as I had expected. It's rare to get a good surprise when trying to design something new (or at least thats my experience).

Now that I have a bunch of approximately foot long strips, it is simply a matter of gluing them together so that they are long enough to reach all the way around the body of the basket. I used a hot glue gun here, but you could use staples or another type of adhesive to attach these.

The second (and riskier) way requires an especially large head that you can cut a spiral out of. Begin by cutting off the metal rim from the head. Start cutting diagonally until you get about an inch inwards from the edge (you can cut a smaller strip depending on how thick the strips in the body are). Level out here and keep cutting at the desired thickness until you get all the way to the middle and can cut no further. This was my initial plan, but I ran into some design problems as I tried to visualize how it would work. I could not figure out if the spiral design would make the strips bend as I wove them around and up the body. I decided to take the safer route and just make separate layers of strips.