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Copper
Most metals are an alloy. An alloy is a base metal combined with one or more other elements. Copper is not an alloy. It is often listed as 99% pure. The other 1% is made up of trace elements or impurities. For the metal sculpture that I do I use sheet copper, copper wire and copper tubing. The advantages of copper: 1) Easy to work with. 2) Readily available. 3) Comes in a variety of shapes and thicknesses. 4) Contrasts well with brazed joints. 5) Numerous ways to finish copper.. (The Sheet Metal Tools chapter and the Forming Copper chapter have more copper information.) The copper sheet that I use is termed 16 oz. copper. This means that it weighs 16 oz. per square foot. One in awhile I'll use some 20 oz. copper which is a bit heavier, but mostly I stick to the 16 oz. About the time you know about 16 oz. copper you'll contact a metals warehouse and they'll tell you that they don't list metals by ounces only in gauges or in thousands. 16 oz. copper is also listed as .0216 thousands or roughly 25 gauge. The 16 oz. comes from people using copper in the roofing business for copper roofs, eaves and gutters, which incidentally is a good place to call about copper. I've bought some at roofing companies and have generally, but not always, found their prices to be reasonable. Easy to Work with: Copper is a soft material and easily malleable as in the following examples.
Another example:
To do the above you'll need to anneal. Annealing will be covered in another section, but for now, just know that it is the process of heating the copper up to red hot and allowing it to cool. You can also do geometric work such as braking (folding), as in these photos that are also in the sheet metal chapter.
Copper is readily available: Buying drops from a non-ferrous warehouse or metal distributor. Non-ferrous means metals that contain no iron. The warehouses are distributers of metal to large manufacturing companies which are ordering in the thousands of pounds. I dealt with a company in Indianapolis years ago that had a section where they stored the drops. An example of a drop: A company orders 200 feet of 20 gauge brass sheet 19 inches wide. The warehouse would run a 24 wide coil of brass through a slitter. The results would be a coil of 19 brass and a coil of 5 brass. For me the 5 coil was perfect for brass maple leaves. The warehouse probably charged the company for the entire 24 coil and the 5 left over was considered scrap. Thus I could buy the 5 x 200 drop for little more than scrap price. I once bought some 24 x 48 sheets of 16 oz copper at a very reduced price. It was intended for a casket company. The sheets had a plastic protective sheet on both sides of the copper to inhibit oxidizing or scratching. There were some bubbles in the plastic protective sheets and the casket company refused the shipment. The bubbles were no hindrance to me. When I pulled out a sheet I would peel back the protective sheet and go to work. Two standard sheet sizes are 24 x 48 and 36 x 96. The 24 x 48 is easier to handle in my shop. I dont have a table large enough to put a 36 x 96 sheet. Also, my foot shear is a 30 shear , meaning that it will only handle 30 wide material. What I have to do is take the sheet outside, lay it on the grass and cut off at least a 6 strip down the entire sheet. This I do with a pair of sheet metal shears. Once Ive cut off the 6 strip then I can feed the larger sheet into the 30 foot shear. This is an awkward process at best. If you can get 24 x 48 sheets I think youll find them easier to work with. Of course if what you are working requires the larger sheets then youll just have to do the best you can with the larger sheets. I have a couple of 36 x 96 sheets on hand. The only reason I have them is that I got an exceptional price on them. The disadvantages of the larger sheets was more than made up for because of the reduced price. You can also find sheet copper at a metal recycler. A friend of mind who is a jeweler buys all her copper sheet at the recycler. Of course, as a jeweler she uses far smaller sizes that I do for metal sculpture. As mentioned above your local roofing company may have some in stock. Sometimes it is difficult to buy from a large warehouse. They really don't want to deal in the small amounts that we want. This makes the internet especially important to you and I. Do a Google search for 16 oz. copper and you will find a number of places that sell on the internet. I notice many of them list 36" x 96" sheets. Although the 24" x 48" sheets are preferable, if you ask them to cut it the cutting charge will probably be $30 or $40. dollars. In this case you may be better off going ahead and getting the 36" x 96" sheets. I also use 8 gauge copper wire. I buy this from a metal recycler.
As you can see from the above photo there is a mishmash of scrap copper. What I am looking for is 8 gauge copper wire that is in cables. Even though this is scrap, the copper wire is new. Yet I am paying scrap copper prices. The cables are left over from commercial electrical jobs. I unwind the cable and make circles for the Magic Wands
Wrap the circles
Ending up with Magic Wands.
Copper Tubing I buy copper tubing at a plumbing wholesaler or the local builder's supply such as Lowes, Home Depot etc. Copper tubing comes in coil (soft copper) and rigid (strength lengths). Most of the soft copper tubing I use is 3/8th outside diameter (OD). It's also available in 3/16", 1/4", 1/2" 3/4" and 1".
I use the rigid copper tubing (straight lengths) for cattails and the golf pieces.
Copper comes in a variety of shapes and thicknesses. You can get copper in just about any shape or thickness you want. If you want copper plate, meaning that it's over an 1/8th" thick or copper bars you'll probably have to go to a metals warehouse. But, if you are at the metal recycler's you might want to have a look around and see what's available. Sometimes it's surprising what you'll find. You might spot something that will give you an idea for a new sculpture. Copper contrasts well with brazed joints. You can see how well the brazed joint contrast against the copper in these Golf Sculptures..
Another example is the brazed joints on this Maple Leaf spray.
There are a lot of choices on the final appear of copper in the sculpture. These will be covered in the chapter on Finish & Finishing. For now here are a few examples. Flame Coloring:
Brushed finish
Brushed finish
Sanded Copper
When you check out the chapter on finishing you'll see some more ideas on ways to finish metals that you can also use on copper. Back to table of contents
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