patination of copper

[Solunar Silver Studio]

The mind boggles!! Imagine trying to tell the story of that particular piece to a prospective customer!!!

The thing about patination that bothers me is how do you keep it looking as good as it did the day it was created?? I know we did some heat treatments at college on copper and got some stunning results and then tried different ways of sealing it but it muted the colours terribly!! But then nobody knew what they were doing there...and I mean the tutors - not the students!! There was no metals expert of any king during our last year so we had to sort of make it up as we went along...

[mrsekky]

I am only just starting to try different things with this but I have used plasti-kote fast dry enamel from B&Q today and at the moment it seems to work well.

Have only tried it over a green patination so will have to have a go over some other colours a see what happens.

Claire.

[Emerald]

all you need to achieve red is to heat and then quench but there are othere ways to achieve a brighter red just dont know them and if you just put a watery mix of your borax cone on the metal this gives a good affect aswell

[mrsekky]

Thanks,

Will have a go with heating my copper in different way and let you know how it goes. Am at college for my nightclass tonight so hopefully I should be able to have a serious go.

[ps_bond]

Have you seen Ganoksin's content on patination?
Tips from the Jeweler's Bench Article Archive - Ganoksin

[Coco]

Have tried a mix of salt and vinegar which has worked quite well.

Interesting. Sounds do-able too i.e I already have everything right here and won't have to go running around town like a loon and accidentally buy a ton of chocolate instead


What kind of salt and vinegar ratios are we talking?

[mrsekky]

I used three table spoons of white wine vinegar and two teaspoons of sea salt. I then painted this onto my pieces twice a day allowing it to dry out before applying another coating. I did this over three days and got reasonable results.

I have coated this with a laquer spray to maintain the effect.

Athough the effect is a little patchy I think it adds to the rustic / natural effect I was trying to acheive and as you say it is great not to have to use any nasty and hard to find chemicals.


Claire.

[Dano]

all you need to achieve red is to heat and then quench but there are othere ways to achieve a brighter red just dont know them and if you just put a watery mix of your borax cone on the metal this gives a good affect aswell

one of my lecturers told me that you can get a really good red on copper by heating it to a dull glow and applying beeswax while it's still warm, but i've never tried it, so caveat emptor

[ps_bond]

By warm, I take it you mean warm to the touch, not still glowing?
Good way to fill a workshop with smoke otherwise...

[Dano]

By warm, I take it you mean warm to the touch, not still glowing?
Good way to fill a workshop with smoke otherwise...

not to mention burned fingers =D yeah, human warm not metal warm