Starting to work with copper

[Ridgewayforge]

Hi IFI,

I am planning on getting started learning to forge copper, and had a few questions.

 

I understand that copper is work hardening, and that heating to dull red followed by a quench in water anneals it. Is dull read also its hot forging range?

And, about cold forging? Is it still heated, or is it actually done at room temperature?

How do you finish the copper work? I imagine polish with emery cloth or sandpaper. I suspect wax is not too good of an idea.

 

What I plan to make is small decorative leaves and the like, perhaps small jewelry and the like for now. I plan to learn about repousse, and if anyone has a link to a good resource for learning this skill, would you be willing to provide it for me?

 

Thank you all, from a newbie non-ferrous metalworker!

 

~Patrick

Ridgeway Forge

[Wroughton]

 You can work it cold or hot. Hot meaning barely any incandescent color to black. As  you work it you will feel it begin to stiffen and resist and then you know it's time to anneal. Quenching doesn't need to occur to soften the metal it just allows you to get back to work faster if you're cold working as in repousse.

 

Nancy Megan Corwin has a great book called Chasing And Repousse. Go figure. A little advanced for if  you're just starting out but definitely a good primer. 

[bigfootnampa]

You can finish copper in many ways.  Wax is certainly fine (why would you think NOT?).  I like a top grade acrylic like "Breakthrough" but I've also used polyurethanes.  Copper is such a good heat conductor that you have to keep full attention on it if you are forge heating it!  Also use your tongs as the cold end will also get hot!  Do NOT bury your copper in the coal if you have a coal forge... your working end will drop off into the fire pit!

[yesteryearforge]

Bigfoot please define Breakthrough

 

 

Mike

[781]

Finish can be liver of sulfur which is mixed with water the longer you leave it in the darker from life brown to chocolate or heat to red and quench which will give a bright red or when hot birth in damp saw side it can give various colors including purples don't clear coat this as it will instantly be gone. Amonia vapers will give greens

[bigfootnampa]

"Breakthrough" is an acrylic finish first developed by Vanex Corp. in Mount Vernon Illinois.  It has exceptional properties!!  I have worked with hundreds of finish products and found no others that will do so many things so incredibly well.  As a professional finisher I find myself using it on at least 90 percent of my projects.  It has amazing durability, exceptional moisture resistance, outstanding flexibility and way above average adhesion! I have been using it more and more over quite a few years now.  It is a superb metal finish, and at least as good as that for wood finishing!  I am NOT selling the stuff... but I surely could, for I AM a believer!  They are now owned by PPG industries which immediately raised the prices by more than double!  They did make it easier to buy though... as they have a huge distribution network.  It is still an excellent bargain too!  I use clear satin for most uses and tint as I like with universal paint tinters or artist's acrylic colors.  For big jobs now, I have it tinted at Porter Paints, that way I can get more that matches when I need it.  I hope Glen won't be upset with me for giving all this specific info here, but there is NOTHING else that will do what this stuff does IME!!  My experience is very wide and deep too!  The U. S. Navy uses it on ships and museums specify it for archival display furniture.  As a self-cross-linking acrylic it is NOT a good paint to breathe the vapors of... If I spray I have a good chemical respirator mask on.  I try to work outside with it when I can.  Still not as dangerous as acrylics with a cross-linking additive IMO and better than most of them anyway.

 

Just an interesting side note: I am told that the chemist that developed "Breakthrough" and started Vanex Corp. was previously the head paint chemist for Brod Dugan paints here in Saint Louis!  Brod Dugan now long since swallowed up (oops... acquired) by Sherwin Williams Paints.

[bigfootnampa]

WOW! I got a picture on here!!  First time in quite a while!  OOOoh!  Keep going!  Here is a door in my bathroom that I woodgrained with "Breakthrough" and I also clear coated the wrought iron robe hooks with clear satin "Breakthrough".  The robe hooks were limned with a brass brush at low heat before clear coating.  The hooks have been in use a couple of years or more... I just finished the woodgraining.

 

[yesteryearforge]

I googled PPG breakthrough but couldnt tell if it was available in spray cans or in clear

[bigfootnampa]

Not available in spray cans, as far as I know.  Porter Paints has it in 3 VOC levels for the satin sheen which I normally use.  They also have tint bases and several standard tints.  My clear satin is the V50 and my bronze but my "Wrought Iron Black" is the V250 (which means more fumes and faster drying... I bought it for spraying a basement ceiling).  You have to go to PPGpro.com and search to find it.  They have clear gloss too but I rarely use it.  

 

http://www.ppgpro.com/products/product-template.aspx?ProdCode=10055

[yesteryearforge]

Thanks

I had never heard of it and think i'll search it out and give it a try

[Ridgewayforge]

Thank you for these resources! I am assuming I can also polish the copper for a shine, and then clear coat it for a gold-like appearance?

If I may, I'd like to pose another quick question: My plan for the forge, being away at school, is a small raised trench (some firebricks) with a fireplace bellows as a side blast Becuase that's all I had time to get before I left, I am not keen on trying to forge iron. I will be using wood. I assume this will work off of past experiences, but I thought I would double check. I figure it might be the perfect heat range. Also, what is the best copper stock to work with?

Thank you,

Rf

[Wroughton]

Well, you can polish it but you'll have shiny copper, not gold. If you want the gold look you can go for silicon bronze which has a nice golden color. 

 

The wood will work great, as will Cowboy charcoal with no blast. An old school round Weber BBQ grill would work just a well. 

 

The best copper stock to work with is the copper you find at the scrappers yard. @ roughly $3 lb for "bright n shiny" copper scrap you don't want to be buying new copper stock to forge. 

 

Try to find any larger stock. Old large drain pipe can be cut and unrolled to give you thicker plate. Large ground rods can be cut into cylinders and upset to make nice stock for heavy and large bowls. Large bus bars can be broke down and forged into dimensional stock. Industrial electricians are your friend. 

 

With a good furnace and a little research  you shouldn't have any problem melting down scrap copper smalls to create larger forging stock. 

[Bentiron1946]

Scrap copper is harder than one would think to melt down. You need to keep the oxygen from it or it just kinda lays they and stays tacky and never quite flows into a cohesive liquid so you can pour a nice ingot. Some suggestion have been to use a lidded crucible, use glass as a flux on top of copper to cut off the oxygen, some who use charcoal as a heat source place charcoal on top of to do this. Sometimes it's just best to save your scrap up and then turn it in for credit for pieces you can actually use rather than expend all the necessary energy to turn it back into useable material yourself.

The only metal I recycle is Sterling silver, I have draw plates now to make my own wire, tube and a rolling mill to make my own sheet. With silver having a spot price of somewhere close to $33/oz it is worthwhile to do this but copper is somewhat cheaper so it hardly makes sense to spend a lot of money to do the recycling yourself when the spot price for copper is $3.60/# today. It's fun to experiment but if you aim is to make money remelting your own copper is not the way to go, instead buy scrap that looks like you can reuse it. I bought some really nice sections of ductwork, some 2" dia. copper pipe, some 3" wide 20 gauge strip 8' long, plus some large bundles of #12 copper wire to make rivets form, all for $4/#. I spent a little over a $100 and had good usable material to make my small scale sculpture out of and no need to worry about if it was cost effective to remelt it myself. The scrap yard made some money on the deal and I walked away happy as a lark. Next time I go all my scrap goes back and he will buy it or give me credit towards my next purchase. It's a good deal for both of us.