The beauty of copper, fire colour, leave and patina

©2017 Barry Smith - Copper offcuts shards

Though the weekend has been reasonably busy I did grab some time on both Saturday and Sunday to start making patina copper leaves of different sizes for a number of projects. I planned to make about 15X200mm leaves; 25X250mm leaves; and 20X120mm leaves.

Doing multiples has its positive (cutting heaps of metal in one cutting and lifting the heavy guillotine onto the bench once); but on the downside there is the sheer number of leaves and the repetition factor. Some photos of the process follow even though folks who visit thew blog have seen similar images before.

©2017 Barry Smith - First fold of the 200mm leave blanks - I attached a 'new' vice to the outside workbench to make this task easier with longer leaves.

©2017 Barry Smith - 60 folded copper blanks

©2017 Barry Smith - Second folding completed on the anvil and leaf forms marked

©2017 Barry Smith - Leaf forms cut and ready for hammering

©2017 Barry Smith - The 200mm leaf forms annealed and in the process of unfolding - love that fire colour

And then there are the cleaned shiny leaves before patina solution is added. I focussed on getting the 15X200mm leaves finished.

©2017 Barry Smith - Unfolded, pickled and washed leaves

©2017 Barry Smith - Unfolded, pickled and washed leaves - ready for patina solution

And after about a half hour of acidic reaction and curing there are beautiful patinated leaves.

©2017 Barry Smith - Beautiful patinated leaves - need to set and then knock back the colour.

Because the 200mm leaves will be for indoor decorative purposes they will need: a coat of sealant; a grind and polish to bring out the highlights and knock back some colour. This will be done during the week hopefully.