Have you seen those wire fish on the walls of film settings or in magazines? We have, and liked them too, but a trip around the stores didn't show any for sale so we set to work and made one. You can have a wire fish on your wall for a couple of shillings and a few hours' work if you follow these instructions.

Materials needed are a flat piece of board large enough to take the design, a few dozen 2 inch nails, a small hammer, soldering iron, solder, 12-gauge wire, sandpaper, black paint and a brush.

First choose your design or copy the one drawn to scale here, then trace the fish on to the board, but don't get too detailed. Too many joints will weaken the finished piece.

Drive nails firmly into the board along all the lines shown in the illustration. Space about 1½ inches apart except on sharp curves where you will find it much easier to bend the wire to shape if nails are closely spaced.

Start at the mouth and bend the wire around the outside of the nails and back to the starting point. Be sure that the wire is firm and smoothly round  with no buckles or bends. If necessary, drive in extra nails close to the wire on opposite side of the line to hold securely in position. Clean the ends of the wire with steel wool and coat with paste flux which can be bought at any hardware store. To make a joint, hold the solder against the soldering iron until it melts, then let the molten solder flow from the iron until it fills the joint completely.

When all joints are soldered, suspend the fish with a strong thread and paint with flat black on both sides. Dry and paint again in 24 hours. Plug the wall and screw in the fish through the eye.