Inlaying copper and bronze into steel

[ladysmith]

I have an idea for an art project running wild in my head. (Where are the cool smilies when I need them?)

The idea involves creating copper and bronze stripes on a piece of steel. I know I can inlay glass by melting it into a depression in a piece of steel. Is it possible to do the same to copper and bronze? Could I just grind a groove in the steel and melt some wire or strips of thin sheet into the grooves? What about brazing the stripes in with copper and bronze rods? What kind of flux (if any) would I need? Do I have to worry about corrosion from the dissimilar metals if I put it outside? Is there any way to minimize or stop the corrosion?

Any help would be appreciated.

Pam

[Marc]

What Lucian Avery, up in VT, does is undercut the sides of the grooves with a chisel, sort of a dovetail shape. Then he lays in the copper and hammers it down so that it upsets and fills the dovetail. He does this cold, as copper is plenty soft enough.

Don't know if bronze is soft enough, though.

[ladysmith]

Marc,

Thanks, that might work, but this would be 1/2 to 1 inch stripes about 8" to 10" long. (should have mentioned that before), so that would be a lot of pounding. I have the hammer to do that, but I'm not sure I have wide and thick enough non-ferrous stock. Hmmm....more searching to do...

Pam

[Glenn]

Split open a copper pipe. 3" diameter pipe will give you just over 9" of width. A couple of grooves down the center of the parent stock may be enough to hold the inlay.

[ladysmith]

Glenn,

That gives me some even wilder ideas! I could keep some of the curved dimension to the pipe. This is for a tribal style wall hanging. Thanks!!!

Still need smilies to match my mood....

Pam

[Glenn]

I curved some copper flashing over a round fuller to create an Omega shape to act as a wind screen on a colonial candle lantern. Great accent piece. Everyone wanted to "touch" it cause it looked pretty. They quickly found that copper gets REALLY HOT when heated by the exhaust port of the lantern.

[fjkratky]

Ladysmith

We inlay silver in metal for spurs and bits this way. It should be able to do copper as well. Aneal the copper it so it is soft and it should flow. Carve out your shape in the metal, do the undercut to the sides so you have a place to lock in the copper (the dovetail that was mentioned) Also you can lift little slivers of steel in the cut out face (all through out the cut out portion). THis way when you hammer in the copper the raised slivers of metal will dig into the copper and when flattened down by the hammering it will hold down the copper. The combination of flowing the copper into the side cut outs as well as the slivers fo metal holding down the copper through out the piece should do the trick.

Probably could do silver solder to hold the copper to the metal as well.

Look for a jewlers book on inlay and onlay and it should give you a better discription. You could go to Igraver.com as well and ask the jewlers and engravers for tips on inlay. Also knifenetwork.com ask knife makers the same queston and they can help as alot of these guys do inlay

Good luck.

Frank

[ThomasPowers]

Damasceneing by inlaying non-ferrous metals into iron/steel that has been cross hatched with a chisel or graver is still done in Toledo Spain. Any good jewelry book should cover it.

May I suggest ILL'ing a copy of "Metal Techniques for Craftsmen" by Oppi Utrecht (sp?).

[arian]

Originally Posted by ThomasPowers

Damasceneing by inlaying non-ferrous metals into iron/steel that has been cross hatched with a chisel or graver is still done in Toledo Spain. Any good jewelry book should cover it.

May I suggest ILL'ing a copy of "Metal Techniques for Craftsmen" by Oppi Utrecht (sp?).

Oppi Untracht, though it's not cheap . Guess the library makes sense.

So long
arian

[ladysmith]

Thanks to all who responded. It gives me a real handle on how I want to accomplish my idea.

Just for reference for those that look here for similar information, Bill Epps also suggested treating the area to be brazed like a "penny weld". An old penny is copper and can be used to forge braze by fluxing the area to be brazed, heating again, and melting a penny into the joint. The penny melts at a lower temperature than steel, so brazes the area (rather than welding). He said I should be able to just treat the area I want to inlay copper (or bronze) the same as if I were "penny welding" it. (ie. heat, flux, reheat, and melt the copper into the fluxed area.) The flux should burn off or float to the top. So normal cleanup should minimize flux corrosion.

Good ideas all around.

Thanks again,

Pam