ladysmith Posted February 3, 2007 Share Posted February 3, 2007 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted February 3, 2007 Share Posted February 3, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladysmith Posted February 3, 2007 Author Share Posted February 3, 2007 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted February 3, 2007 Share Posted February 3, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladysmith Posted February 3, 2007 Author Share Posted February 3, 2007 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted February 3, 2007 Share Posted February 3, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fjkratky Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 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?). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arian Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladysmith Posted February 6, 2007 Author Share Posted February 6, 2007 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skunkriv Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 FYI-something that stuck in my mind (hey it happens sometimes, really) Was once told that 'merican pennies up through 1989 will work for forge brazing. So you don't have to search out your old wheat pennies (they work good too!) Always keep a few pennies and some borax in my travelling box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladysmith Posted February 6, 2007 Author Share Posted February 6, 2007 Very cool! Actually the roofing copper I have should melt fine. I know for a fact that copper ground wire from Lowes melts easily (whether I want it to or not.) Pam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PBARNHART Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 Consider attenting the 2007 Tinsmith/coppersmith convergence, there are some old fashioned techniques that may be applied here..don't know for sure.. June 21 - 24 in north west OHIO... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BT Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 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. I like to use stranded copper wire for forge brazing. I have some # 9 stranded where the individual strands are about 22 or 24 guage (about the size of telephone conductor). You can easily break the strands down to just what you need to wrap your joint. Then heat, flux, and heat to the melting temp of the copper. To help clean up the joint, quickly dip the piece in the slack tub just for a second or two as soon as the copper solidifies. This will cause the flux residue to pop loose and then it can easily be removed with a wire brush. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evfreek Posted March 1, 2007 Share Posted March 1, 2007 Hi. I have a big coil of romex wire that I bought at a garage sale. It is much cheaper than penny's. It is just cut into segments of a few inches. When it is needed, it is warmed abouve the fire and just pops out of the insulation. Works great, and if you splash it around on dinged steel, it makes interesting accents for jewelery. But, you don't use it up all that fast doing a few little penny welds here and there. Someone posted a neat mokume video, and I wonder if a bunch of twisted copper wire can be consolidated with heat and flux into something like mokume. Or it only works with sheets due to the increased oxidation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 Brownells sells some solder they c all Tix strips,,have to get the flux with it,,,it melts at under 300degrees f........Should work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evfreek Posted March 5, 2007 Share Posted March 5, 2007 Uh oh, not Tix. That stuff is really expensive. I think it costs more than commercial base metal mokume. I did see some other less expensive solders, like the cadmium silver for $159 per pound. That sounds expensive, so I might pass on that. The regular silver bearing solder, the Hi-Force 44 with 96% tin looks more promising. But it costs $73 per pound. Much less than the others, but still not worth it for sticking copper wires together. This does give me an idea, though. Something like fluxed spelter paste or waste drippings from soldering copper pipes. Got lots of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty7 Posted May 8, 2007 Share Posted May 8, 2007 You could use a cutting wheel on an angle grinder to undercut your groove so that the copper will grip better instead of using a gouge and hammer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhandir Posted May 9, 2007 Share Posted May 9, 2007 Heh, I just read this today and tried a very simple form of it. Took me all about five minutes to do. All I did was take a scrap of steel that I had tried cutting with a hardy tool, but left half done. I'm glad I did, all that was in the steel was a groove about 1/2 a cm, which I took a dremel tool to, and dove tailed it. Looking baisically like this: After doing this, I just stripped a Romex(?) copper electrical wire, and cold pounded the copper into the dove-tail. I tried to pry it out once it was in, and I was quite unsuccesful. I then ground with the wire, trying to dislodge it that way, and I was also unsuccessful. Here is the finished project, turned out to be a very nice inlay that took me about five minutes on my first try. It's so COOL!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam Posted May 9, 2007 Share Posted May 9, 2007 i have often put brass and copper inlay on to steel by chiseling the pattern on to the metal and then melting copper or brass in to the chisel marks you can ether use borax or just sift flux or any brazing flux you have handy then just polish off the surplus hope this helps lady Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillbillysmith Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 PBARNHART, I live in NW Ohio. Where is this going to be? Btw, U can use a torch and braze both copper and bronze and make it fuse to steel. I do it all the time with my projects. You can use house hold 12 GA. romex wire for the copper part of the bazing, and you can buy bronze filler rod at the local welding supply. The bronze rod will have a flux already on it, but the copper from the house will not (natually). You do not NEED a flux for the copper. All the flux does is remove oxidizers from the base metal. I recomment getting flux for it though. Whether you use flux or not, make sure the base metal is VERY clean. I mean shiny with a grinder, not just a wire brush. You can also buy a small tin of dry flux powder. To use it, all you do is swipe the flame over the copper (to Bring the moisture out of the pours of the metal to the surface), and dip it into the tin of flux. Walla! You now have a fluxed copper filler wire. Just go back after it cools and grind and pollish all of it up and you're good to go. P.S: To prevent corrosion of the copper/bronze, just get a can of rustolium metal clear coat. Don't worry about it corroding with the two dissimmiliar metals next to each other. That only happens with aluminum and steel. Plus it has to be exposed to prolonged weathering. Hope this advise helps. -Hillbillysmith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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