More and More Copper Mugs

I've been doing a lot of copper mugs recently, here's some images from the most recent two sets I made.  One was a set of 4 that I raised and finished together, which then was split into pairs and sent to their new homes, and then another pair on top of that.  Pretty similar to my last set of mugs, only difference being that I forged with some new handle designs out of some heavy copper rod.




Not too many process pics for this set, please refer back to this previous post for more information on the raising process.

  4 8 inch disks all being raised together was a first for me, it really takes a while getting through all those successive courses at once.  Here you see them right before I start raising from about an inch or so from the base.

All mugs trimmed, planished, and the edge rolled.  I finally figured out a way to get a really clean even roll around the edge and was able to make it very flat and consistent.  Seeing how long it took for me to figure this out I was pretty stoked.

I got some heavy copper rod, this is 5/16" round rod, and hammered a sort of handle out of it.  I was pretty happy with the result.  Here you see the blank and the formed piece, showing just how much I forged and moved that metal around.  This gets fitted to match the profile of the mug, and then riveted in place.  After that they get cleaned, then I use some liver of sulfur to patina the metal, and seal it with a coat of renaissance wax.

Copper Mugs, each hold about 16 oz of liquid.  

For the next set, I did everything exactly the same, same size, roughly the same final profile, except my copper rod was a little thinner at 1/4".  That meant the split was a little weaker, and I ended up breaking one of the little tabs off when I was forging it into shape.  With a tight deadline and no extra material, I changed the design a bit so there are two tabs on the top and just one on the bottom.  Worked out just fine, and I let me use a larger rivet on the bottom, which I liked the look of.  And I remembered to bring my good camera to the studio so I got to take some higher quality photos of this set.  Enjoy.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to contact me at sioisc@gmail.com for and questions or inquiries.