MakeShift 03: Dan Rubenfield’s Most Creative Winning Entry
by William Lidwell
November 01, 2005
Though the chicken wire would be visible when viewed from rooftops or from ground level with binoculars, its impact could be minimized through careful application and creative use of the cape to hide it. A good chicken wire wrap would have enormous tensile strength and should work well even if the fiberglass shell collapses. Short and simple. Congratulations, Dan!
Chicken wire is near invisible from street level. Ostensibly, the cow is for viewing from the ground.
You can simply secure the cow to the crane (EXTREMELY securely) by wrapping it in chicken wire. If the feet are to be attached to the crane, you can use some simple brackets to bolt it to the crane frame, then wrap the entire body with chicken wire, enlarging the holes for the feet.
Simply bolt the loose chicken wire ends together and voila. You’ll probably have to reinforce specific load areas with some metal brackets (to distribute the load across more of the wire links), but beyond that, it should stay there.
It follows the theory that the higher above eye level something is, the messier the work can be… e.g., crown molding or light fixture mountings.