You've seen your car all streaked with mud and then you have seen it waxed and polished - the comparison is nothing short of amazing.

This is an apt analogy of taking your sculpture from the state it is on your welding table to the sculptures that is going to hang on someone's wall.

Below are a coupled of photos that illustrate this point:. how it looks on the welding table and then the finished piece wire brushed, highlighted and clear coated.

Finishing can take your piece from "nice" to "wow".

Let's take a look at that first photo again.  Notice the grey soot around the brazed joints. 

Every place you have brazed needs to be wire brushed whether with a hand held wire brush or a wire brush on a die grinder.  At the same time making sure that the brazed joints really shine.

Remember, the brazed joints add color and contrast with the other metals.

I can't over emphasis the importance of wire brushing your piece of sculpture.

Notice the difference between these two photos below. First photo is of a wand on the welding table.

The photo below is a wand after it has been wire brushed.

To change a Magic Wand from the way it looked on the welding table to the one just above is in the wire brushing.

I use the wire brush on a motor for the Magic Wands.

This is a simple tool which is illustrated in the "tools you can make" chapter.

This means that there are three tools I use to cleanup my pieces:  A hand held wire brush, a wire brush on a die grinder and this wire brush on a motor.

Every time I do some of these bikes below I think to myself, "these look terrible".  But once I clean them up, puts some highlights and a bit of color on them and spray them, they look great.  This is just another illustration of how important the finishing process is.

Highlighting

I use Rub & Buff to highlight different pieces of sculpture.  Rub & Buff is a paste like paint that comes in a variety of colors.  Primarily I use Gold, Antique Gold or Gold Leaf.

You can find these at craft stores, hardware, and the paint section of your local builder's supply.  Each tubes cost about $3.00 and will last for months.  

Below is an example of places I've put a small amount of gold Rub & Buff on this Road Bike for highlight.

Using Color

I rarely use color.  Exceptions would be some red highlights on bicycles and also on the golf sculptures where I use green and a bit of red. 

Flame Coloring Copper

On specific pieces I use the torch flame to bring out different colors in the copper.

The video below demonstrates the process of flame coloring copper.  The things to keep in mind are 1) the copper must be clean, 2) adjusting the flame for the best color which usually means a small flame and 3) if you don't get what you want you can wire brush the copper and start over.

Flame Coloring Copper 

Clear Coating

Below is a discussion on clear coating the finished sculpture.  When spraying  copper that has been flame colored you will lose a bit of the color.  This means that it is doubly important that you get the most vibrant color in the beginning so if you lose a little color it won't matter that much.

The final step is spraying with with a clear lacquer or a clear aerosol acrylic.

I use a spray unit. If you are not doing a lot of work or if you don't have a spray outfit, aerosol acrylic works just as well.

I have a spray room which is good in that it keeps "over spray" or excess spray from getting all over the shop.  Even an area surrounded with clear plastic sheets will suffice.

If you are using a quick dry spray you can spray outside as long as there is not a lot of wind blowing dust around.

The aerosol shown here is Krylon Crystal Clear. This is a quality aerosol spray.  You can find this at almost any builders supply, craft store, discount store or hardware store.

Rust-Oleum makes a good spray but the last can I purchased was very slow drying which brings up the problem of air borne dust. 

I've found both Krylon and Rust-Oleum products to be excellent. 

As I said I use clear lacquer and a spray outfit.  I buy a gallon of clear lacquer and mix it half and half with lacquer thinner.  For my spray outfit it must be thinned or it will not go through the spray gun.

When spraying wear a spray mask and spray in a well ventilated area.

Spraying a clear coating has the problem of not knowing exactly what you have covered.  It you are spraying a color such as black you can see what is covered and what is not.

For this reason I spray four coats front and back.  Spraying in all four directions.  I use a revolving table so I spray from one direction, turn the table and spray again and so on until I have sprayed from all four directions.  As I said, I spray front and back.

The clear spray protects your sculpture from oxidizing (copper turning green or in the case of steel rusting).

Spraying will also enhance your sculpture by giving it a sheen.

This sheen allows the light to reflect off the piece making it more interesting to the viewer.

High Humidity

High humidity can be death to a piece of sculpture.  If the humidity is over 65% the result may be that the spray turns a milky white.

I definitely would suggest using an inexpensive humidistat.  I paid $5.00 for the humidistat below.

As you can see here the temperature is a bit over 70 degrees and the humidity is about 57%.  Perfect for spraying.

Do yourself a favor and pay attention to the humidity,  If your piece does turn out a milky white you have no other choice than to take a rag or brush dipped in a solvent and clean the entire piece.

There is one other possibility and that is to find what is called a "Blush Remover". 

What Blush Remover does is liquify all four coats of spray and then they dry as one coat.  Drying time is greatly increased so you must be aware of air borne dust.

Big problem here is that when you need a can of blush remover you don't have one.

If you live in a high humidity area you might want to do some research and locate a source for blush remover. 

I have purchased some in aerosol that didn't quite do the trick.  Best results was when I purchased a quart of it from a Woodworker's Supply..  But that was some time ago and the place I purchased it from is no longer in business.

If you don't have a spray outfit you can buy a aerosol container for about $10.00.

Do a search for "Reusable/Refillable Aerosol Spray Can".

Fill that with blush remover and then go to your nearest gas station and use their air hose to pressurize the can.

Using Acids for oxidizing copper.

Copper roofs take years to attain that rich patina.

Mild acids will turn copper green; like an old copper roof. 

You can accelerate this process by using acids.  A good readily available acid is a toilet bowl cleaner like "Snow Bowl".

Apply the acid to the copper with either a rag or brush.  Leaver it on till you get the patina that you want.  Then rinse off with water to neutralize the acid.

Always wear rubber gloves and eye protection when working with acid.

Personally, I don't use acids.  1) acids are toxic, 2) unless you use acids regularly the results can be less than desired, 3) I can get enough different finishes by flame coloring, wire brushing, grinding and sanding.

There are many chemical solutions for coloring metals.  If this interests you, you can find more information by doing a Google search.  Words that you might look for are; patina, metal coloring and verdigris.

Using acids is a skill like any other.  If this interests you get ready to do some trial and error work on scrap material.

Sand Blasting

This is an economical option if you have an air compressor.  The sand blasting equipment can be purchased at most discount tool stores and the sand is nominal in price.

The downside is that this inexpensive equipment doesn't always work the way we want.  Sands get clogged in the gun and will need to be cleaned out in order for work to progress.

The upside is that you can achieve a matt finish on metals, especially copper and brass because they are relatively soft materials.  It will also remove rust from steel, but for that I prefer grinding with the 4" disc grinder and then sanding.

You can buy your sand at your builder's supply or hardware.  It's recommended to stay away from silicon sand.  I buy sanitized play sand which is sand for children's sand boxes.

You'll want to wear a heavy long sleeved shirt, hat, gloves and face shield.  The sand ricocheting off the metal is like tiny pin pricks and they hurt.

Sometimes I don't think it is worth the effort, but did want to throw it in here as another option for finishing.

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