Well folks, I am hoping this team of experienced folks can help me think this through. So, I am going to be teaching some chasing and Repousse this year and I need to setup classroom tool sets on the cheap side. I have lol 24 kids in a class. Budgets are tight this year in my area in public education. So whatever it will have to be as cheap as possible. Here is my plan so far. 
 

I will be teaching a small 3” or less in diameter chasing/Repousse activity. This is a foundational skill activity so it will not be fancy or large at first. Maybe saw them out when finished or use them as is to make a lid or a container. We will be using copper sheet to hammer this all out. To hold the sheet I think I am going to use small tart pans filled with beeswax as it is cheaper than pitch. For the tool sets I have shaped out a simple set of tools using masonry nails with simple forms. I have a bevel, round, square, curve, point, and teardrop. They are all pretty small due to the end of the cut nail. Honestly, I am thinking about making them over again in mild steel as I think they will hold up enough and I can get some bigger sizes. Add in a couple of propane torches for annealing and a few heat guns for placing the sheet or backfilling with beeswax and I think I am set with the basics. 
 

Do you think I am missing anything? Or would you do something different?

If you decide to redo the tools, consider using old Allen wrenches. I got a whole lot from my local ReStore for five cents each; not only are they decent steel, but the hexagonal shape also gives a better control.

I'd be concerned about the beeswax instead of pitch, as it might be too soft and susceptible to getting even softer if the room is too warm or even from the heat of the students' hands. You might try seeing what happens if you bulk out the wax with some plaster of Paris, which may stiffen it somewhat.

Is the budget tight enough the school will let you buy from pawn / 2nd hand shops? If so, another good source of appropriate steel I like are metal punches and cold chisels If you load up on them you often don't have to do any forging, the basic shapes are there and only need dressing. All your students will be doing with concrete nails is punching holes in the copper, probably within the first 2-3 blows. Copper is difficult to keep from tearing without inviting it.

You'll need a buffer to keep them polished. Do NOT allow the students to touch or even be close to the buffer! If you don't have experience using a buffer, get a shop teacher or someone in a plating shop to teach you. Buffing wheels are one of THE MOST DANGEROUS power tools found in shops!

Are you REALLY thinking you'll be able to teach repousse to a 24  student class? How long have you been teaching repousse? Do you know how much individual attention a beginner requires till they've finished (off) the first few pieces? ESPECIALLY using copper.

Make it a class project, pick some basic simple designs, say a crucifix for those who wish, a star burst with 4 rays, a sunrise / set with rays. clouds are okay but less easy.  A rope / cable pattern is good for the folk with a better handle. as is scroll work and geometric patterns. Simpler mandalas are good. Simple patterns, interlocking and intersecting lines are more intermediate level.

As part of the class project have them collect Altoid tins or for large project cookie tins. They are made from almost iron carbon content, "deep draw" steel. The advantages over copper are numerous, first it's less expensive as in free for the asking. Second it work hardens more slowly and detectably. Copper starts out very soft and work hardens quickly and abruptly. I have folk anneal copper after 3 passes, 4 passes is pushing it unless you have experience and 5 is probably going to tear out. Your students will be annealing copper every 2-3 minutes. EXPECT BURNS!

Altoid tin steal lets you work 4-5 passes unless you're making deep blows but it becomes noticeably resistant and with a little practice won't surprise you. Altoid tins are easy enough to come by you can let the students break a couple few learning how far they can push it. Yes? 

For an introduction I like using the stiffest modeling clay available, it's not ideal, not really even very good. But it does work and better than paraffin. (I know that one from personal experience.) A guy on the north slope when I worked there used to fill aluminum hard hats with tar and chased some epic scenes. My favorite of the ones I saw was Viking warriors in a berserker charge on the left side towards charging medieval Knights on the right on a field of clouds with IIRC a full moon center front.

The owners only brought them out on occasion, aluminum hard hat had been banned for years at the time, The artist  did them for free to pass the time between shifts. 

Okay, here goes! I couldn't find a pic of an Altoid tin or the bear challenge repousse I did back when BUT the cookie tin itself is handy. Now if I can successfully copy and attach a pic here. I'll spare everybody all but the minimum gripe about the new laptop and MS Edge saving every danged thing in the cloud (China)!! <grrr> The first pic is the print I modeled the repousse on. I copied if from somewhere, massaged the size to fit the cookie tin reversed and printed it with my old laser printer and used the print as a heat transfer stencil to the tin. If you do this you need to make 2 a front and a back. front goes on the front of the lid and the reverse stencil goes on the inside. I made tiny center punch marks to align the stencils.

Hopefully I'll be able to find the pics I took and attach them next to the stencil. Okay, I've been waiting for an hour for the emails with the new pics to show up in my inbox. I'll post this now and hopefully the photos with show up so I can post my early repousse.

Frosty The Lucky.

  

 

 

I know next to nothing about repousse work, but if beeswax is not suitable would pieces of maybe a door mat, office carpet, or sheet of rubber work instead? Just thinking that maybe a cheap work around. 

There are lots of alternatives, beeswax works though it's not favored. Aren't there any repousse fora or sites around? There used to be a bunch but I haven't looked in a long time. Rubber mat is only useful for the initial stretching which provides material to chase and still make a positive image. It doesn't work for chasing though the backing needs to hold an imprint of the chasing as you work. 

Stiff modeling clay is the most economical and still effective backing I know of. Once you've set the blank to it chill it in the fridge, then the freezer for fine detail.

Frosty The Lucky.

There’s a good Chasing & Repoussé group on Facebook. 

Thanks guys for the help and ideas. I had to make all of the tools over again out of larger stock. Frosty, as you pointed out the concrete nails pierced through rather easily. And I have a gentle hand, the kids will not. The mild steel tools did hold up when working with copper. So I think I will have the students make their own tooling and even a custom stamp. I did have trouble with the beeswax holding the workpiece it wants to pop out unless there is a bunch of wax on the top.  

As far as Altoid containers go, I have access to tinplate sheet. That stuff is pretty soft but will work harden eventually. I have used tinplate for years with for a wall sconce project that was soldered together. I have also made all of my own candle molds out of tinplate. I have never though heated it up enough to anneal it. Will that burn off the tin coating?

Altoid tins work harden but being deep draw it's more gradual. Normalizing them is as easy as holding them over the stove burner till the colors run to black, no need to hit to red. 

I'd post a pic of my cookie tin bear hunter but right now my comp OS isn't allowing even email to load. No notifications, nada. I hate the idea of calling Geek Squad there's no telling if they're on this continent, speak English or know diddly but . . . <sigh> 

Frosty The Lucky.

Here at the NWBA, during our conferences, there's a reppousse station and all Louie uses as an intro is a couple layers of cardboard and scrap office carpeting instead of pitch bowls.  I know a number of smiths who do a lot of copper work using layers of cardboard.
Grade 8 - 3/8" bolts about 4-5" long make good reppousse tooling stock.  When I started I saw a smith put these in a drill and grind the heads to different sizes.  Then think of them as tiny hammer heads.  

I do all almost all my work on a leather sand bag. I reposition it and make divots and shapes to work in and it works for me for the most part.

Good idea with the allen wrenches and bolts, I make my tools from coil springs and old chisels and scraps.

Good luck with your class, teach!

The material you use as a backing determines the fineness of detail you can chase. A soft backing like modeling clay, rubber mat or carpet is good for raising large subjects like a head, animal, mountain, etc. with large chisels say a wooden dowl like the end of a shovel handle. When you start chasing features like nose, eyes, ears, etc. you use a medium soft backing say bees wax, chilled modeling clay or similar and finer chisels say ground from 3/8" +/- stock. For finer detail stiffer backing and smaller tools. Fine detail a pretty hard backer say roofing asphalt and chisels you can poke right through the subject with too hard a tap and light hammers as in single digit OZ. weight. 

It's easy to end up with a tool box of hammers and chisels, a couple drawers of layout tools and a cabinet of waxes and other backers. and lets NOT forget the ring and spherical base. Bowling balls with a flat side being excellent bases. 

I'm afraid many of the proper terms are playing hide and seek with the voices in the wrinkles on my brain.

Frosty The Lucky.