Further Experiments with metals

So, I was in the basement the other day, doing laundry, waiting for the washer to fill up (I have a point, I promise!) and just staring off into space while waiting. My eyes happened to fall upon the "plumbing" toolbox we set up - just so we would know all the required things are all in one place for those emergencies - and I saw copper. I LOVE copper......love, love, love copper, and every time I see it my mind is always making something with it. So, I took a few things out of the plumbing box and set out to make a piece of jewelry. Documented below is my journey - from piece of copper piping through to the resulting copper pendant created from it.


The pipe cutter and a length of 3/4" copper pipe


I cut a 1/4" wide piece of the pipe off

I used a piece of plumbers cloth to sand the rough edges of the cut piece - it actually works really well and got all the rough edges smoothed. I still had no idea what I wanted to do with it, so I decided to use more tools and see where that took me.

I got out my steel block and fancy-schmancy hammer and decided to start beating on the ring of copper - I decided to hammer the cut edges and as I was hammering it I liked how it was looking, so I kept hammering it until the top met the bottom. I made sure to hammer evenly, on the top and the bottom, and gradually it folded in on itself and made a wide circle.

This is the flattened piece of pipe - I buffed it and cleaned up the edges a little with a file but really liked the organic feel of the circle so I kept the filing to a minimum. But, I still wasn't happy with what I had, so I went in search of more tools, of course.

I found a nice heavy bolt with really good threads on it and decided I would use it to add texture to the circle - I used my hammer and the bolt on it's side and just smacked away until I liked the resulting design. I buffed it up, wire wrapped a piece of turquoise (really unusual piece, which I purchased from Magpie gemstones), hung it from a "spring" component I made with 18 gauge square copper wire and strung it on leather.

And Voila - the finished piece. So, how's that for an experiment?