Copper jewellery.

[one_rod]

A friend of mine was suffering from mild arthritis in his elbows. Many people believe that wearing a copper bracelet helps with this condition.

Now, he's very big bloke and thought that the ones that were available in the shops were a bit "dainty looking" for his taste. So I made him this.

Forged from 6mm copper bar, with 1mm wire wrapping on the ends. I did hope that it would have held itself together, but I ended up having to put a couple of small spots of braze on the back of the knot, and on the ends of the wire wrap. They are not visible once its being worn.



one_rod.

[skunkriv]

Nice job! I like it.

[Ian]

Me too Rod I don't think you'd have ended up with any alternative but a bit of solder to hold that style of bracelet together though, so don't feel bad about it. What was the alternative? Trying to forge weld copper..... good luck with that mate, LOL Has anyone on here ever done it?

[johnny99]

Sure Ian, all the time. It's called mokume.

[one_rod]

Originally Posted by Ian

Me too Rod I don't think you'd have ended up with any alternative but a bit of solder to hold that style of bracelet together though, so don't feel bad about it. What was the alternative? Trying to forge weld copper..... good luck with that mate, LOL Has anyone on here ever done it?

Ian,
I was sort of hoping that if I made the knot tight enough it would hold itself together. But it didn't.

I have gas welded and TIG welded copper. I have even stick welded it (an obsolete process in copper nowadays).

I was about to agree with you about forge welding the stuff, but as Johnny99 says, the mokume process is a kind of forge weld.
Well it's a kind of weld, and it can be done in the forge.....


one_rod.

[Ian]

Yes it is, but as you probably know Rod, mokume gane (to give it it's full title) is a process where 'layers' of copper and alternative metals such as silver, gold etc are stacked and then forge welded. It's not (in my experience at least) a case of putting two layers of copper together and forge welding them, which would have been the case with that bracelet. It's a case of getting the metal with the lowest 'wash' point to stick to the metal next to it on either side, which isn't normally two pieces of copper. I wasn't saying copper CAN'T be forge welded together, I leave that to more experienced Smiths, just that it's ruddy difficult and in the case of the bracelet an unessessary hardship.