Hi guys, I'm new to the forum and could not help but check out this thread. I make lamps and may be able to help a little. Traditionally a gas lamp is assembled with rivets as gas generates heat and over time will wear and weaken any soft solder (tin or lead base) but silver solder or braze (phos-copper) is higher temp and will stand up to environment. Welding is one way to go but it can take alot of patience, practice and skill for thin copper sheet its up to you. Copper is a wonderful material to work with and very forgiving. If you are use to SS and Alum. you may find very soft, and may not need to worry about annealing if all you are doing is bending and folding.
Good luck:)
