More Raised Copper

Basement studio

I moved my studio from the Crane Old School to my basement after we moved into the new rowhouse.  It's pretty dry, sorta finished, and I gotta say it is so nice not having to leave the house to get some work done.  And no noise complaints from the neighbors so I think it's going to work out.  

Finishing up the buckles and backpack hardware.

I finally got my bronze buckles and square loop back from the casters after having been given the runaround by a different company.  I think they are going to look great on a backpack that is going in the Crafts Show at the BDDW showroom in New York.  The furniture company I work for is having a show of employees work at their showroom in New York.

Heres the pieces back from the casters, cleaned and pre-polished but still pretty rough.

These are some copies I made of the original wax carving by making a mold out of urethane and shooting wax into the cavity.  

 Patinated and the brass tongues for the buckles fixed in place. The buckles will be the adjusters on the arm straps and the square loop in for a leather strap that fastens the bag closed.

Raised Copper Bowl

My friend Melanie commissioned me to do a large copper bowl after seeing the lampshades I made earlier.  With no further instructions than "I want a giant copper bowl," I was able to work without restrictions or a real plan, something that is nice when you are exploring formally.  I ordered a 18" disk of 18 gauge copper off Metalliferous and got started. 

The Knife

Here are a series of process shots of making the knife, trying to leave out some of the stages similar to the spoon and fork.

Haystack 2011

Last summer I took a course at Haystack craft school taught by John Cogswell on forging silver flatware.  This was really my impetus for starting to get my own workshop and seriously practicing metalsmithing.  Here are some studio pics I took at the Concrete Polish studio after.

Making the fork

Cuffs and Bracelets

I've been making a lot of cuffs and bracelets out of copper to keep busy and practice techniques

Brass Hardware

Making Raised Copper Bowls

I got a project from the owner of the furniture company I work for to make him some copper dishes that would be used for lampshades.  I hadn't done any raising on that scale since Junior year of college so I was a little worried, but in everything went pretty well in the end.

Heres a bowl while I'm halfway through soldering the rim on, which was 12g halfround copper wire.  The color comes from the oxides forming on the surface of the coppers and will all be cleaned off.

Nearly finished bowl

Two bowls, one polished one not

I ended up making 4 bowls in total.  The first one took me some 9+ hours, while the 4th took me less than 6.  

Work on the Spoon

Desk gets built with tools starting to find homes