Dad Coins

Plywood, Spray paint, pen.

My piece was inspired by the drugstore item of fake plastic coins. During this project I was required to use digital fabrication in order to create multiples of something, each functionally the same. Looking at the plastic coins I was reminded of a saying my dad used to tell me as I left the house, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” This was my dad’s lighthearted way of telling me to be careful. After doing some research I found that the saying originates from the Great Depression, it was meant to warn country folk of scammers in more densely populated areas. Nowadays a wooden nickel is usually a token or a souvenir.

To execute the Dad Coin I began by drawing out an outline of my father’s face in my sketchbook, and then transferred it to Adobe Illustrator. On Illustrator I created a two sided coin design for the CNC router. When I had the design cut out with the CNC router I had the digital fabricator (my teacher) cut down about an 8th of an inch on the inside of the coin, leaving my dads outline. I sanded both sides down, glued them together, and painted each one white in preparation for the silver paint. To save time I used silver spray paint and sprayed them all down together. After I sprayed them down I added silver details with a chrome oil based paint pen. Lastly, I added details with an ink pen.

To maintain the integrity of it being a nickel, I knew I had to have a face on one side. Who better to put on the nickel than the inspiration for the whole project, my dad, Kurt Dammermann. The backside was more of a challenge, but after thinking about it enough I thought that I would stick to the theme and include a dad joke. The symbols on the back are an ear, eye, nose, mouth, and hand, representing that the nickel is worth 5 sense. I made 15 of these coins to trade with my classmates. I hope they find somewhere they can spend their 5 sense on a funnier dad joke.