Awesome Junk

Artist Zak Miskry makes amazing metal sculptures of insects and animals from recycled electronics and scrap metal. In this video, he shows how he created a larger-than-life firefly that lights up like the real thing. It was a painstaking process to pick and place all the right parts, but the finished sculpture was worth the effort.

The Tesla Cybertruck is expensive and hard to come by. Steven Song and his buddies figured they could solve both problems by building their version of the vehicle. Only this cursed Cybertruck rolls on tank treads, has a weapon system, and is constructed almost entirely from stuff they found in a junkyard.

A Bugatti Chiron costs at least $2 million. To save money, Steven Song and a team of builders made their own Bugatti using junkyard parts. They started with a busted-out Pontiac G6, then built a custom metal frame, sculpted a mesh and foam form, and covered it with Bondo. It wasn’t without setbacks, but they eventually finished the Walmart Bugatti.

Jake Carlini wanted a motorcycle but didn’t have the budget to buy a real one. Instead, he decided he’d build his own using various bits of junk and trash he found in his garage. He made its frame out of steel signposts and scrap wood and powered it with a cheap electric scooter motor from China.

Handy Geng has a problem with unwanted visitors. After building a manned security patrol mech, the inventor decided to build something that would operate autonomously. So he got to work fabricating a security robot to stand guard at his main gate. Its chomping metal teeth, recorded dog barks, and water gun are designed to ward off strangers.

If you happen to drive through Sumpter, Wisconsin, you might come across this incredible work of art built in the 1980s by Tom Every. He created the enormous sculpture from more than 300 tons of scrap metal. Its fantastical structures imagined the launch of its creator into the heavens on a beam of lightning.

After seeing Sideshow’s Alien King Maquette, artist Cao Shengge was inspired to make his own version of the terrifying (but non-canon) creature. After making a clay miniature, he got to work building the life-size monster from steel, bicycle innertubes, and over 200 recycled tires.

If you want a real Bugatti Chiron, you’re looking at about $3 million bucks. Or if you’re handy with cutting metal and welding, you could make one out of old car parts. CB Media visited Thailand’s Ban Hun Lek for a look at an incredible Chiron replica parked between an army of junkyard mechs and monsters.

Maker Laura Kampf has crafted some pretty impressive items over the years. In between larger projects, she decided to do something a little less daunting, and built herself a unique lighting fixture out of found objects and scrap wood. The finished lamp looks like something you’d find in a high-end lighting store.

Working in collaboration with Wallpaper* Re-Made project, men’s apparel brand Vollebak comments on electronic waste with a unique timepiece. The colorful Garbage Watch is made from recycled components taken from old circuit boards. Vollebak is accepting waiting list requests for its 2021 release now.

French artist Zoer transformed a junkyard full of old cars into a giant work of art. He painted each of the 144 cars a different shade, creating a rainbow of color when viewed from above. Each car also has its RGB Hex color value applied to its hood.

While many of the things we throw away are garbage, once in a while, there’s something of value. During his 34 years on the job, New York sanitation worker Nelson Molina collected items along his route, amassing a collection of over 45,000 items. Nicolas Heller’s documentary offers a profile of the man and his private museum of treasure.

How to Make Everything is usually busy making ordinary items in overly complex ways by creating them from scratch. But this time, what he made was anything but ordinary – an electric guitar fabricated from junked car parts, complete with a Mad Max-style flamethrower.