Whoah! this is a brilliant technique. Thanks for sharing!
REALLY great work here. And I appreciate the write-up! I’d never’ve thought of any of that!
Great technique! Looks exactly like a solid hammered copper plate.
But it’s not very ductile which is the problem. I bet aluminum will tear. Whomp.
Sounds like a challenge
Might be able to make both the positive base version and a mirror engrave that you could sandwich the flashing between and press together to get it formed.
Thanks for all the lovely comments everyone !
Even tho I have an assortment of Dremels I’m always reaching for this little orange guy, it’s super lightweight and so cheap! (originally bought to file the dog’s claws)
I probably should have been more clear about the 5mil copper - they call it foil but it’s pretty hefty at about 10x thicker than kitchen foil. 5mil=36 gauge=thinnest tooling copper, also sold as shim stock. You can still cut it with scissors but not tear it by hand and it’s annealed to be dead soft. Even so, it took a lot of gentle coaxing to shape all the sharp corners without tears or wrinkles. Soft or even half hard aluminum sheet in a similar gauge, like flashing, would probably behave similarly to this copper- there was a lot of hammered aluminum in the 50s, quite collectible now.
That is gorgeous! Love to see the ways the GF can be utilized. Great job! Thanks for sharing the process!
It looks amazing! Great job!
You can get sheets (2ft by 3ft) of 22ga (.025") aluminum in the sheet metal/ductwork aisle of Home Depot. That might work too.
Really cool technique! The sign looks amazing.
I’m slightly obsessed with signs and yours is amazing. Using the crisp prescision of the laser to act as the base for a hand beaten overlay is inspired. Must get me some copper sheet and have a go!
Simply outstanding! The care you went through to tool the copper really shows in the final product. Now I want a house number like this!
You can indeed use tooling aluminum for this. I did something similar on a much smaller scale with 38 gauge aluminum and it worked great.
Nice! I was thinking it would be an etch. Well, as my house is almost 100 and it needs some new numbers, I guess I have a new project.
You can buy soft Aluminum flashing from most hardware stores. Much thicker than foil and I think able to chase down as he did, though perhaps not as tight as the much more malleable copper but experimenting could help. Also to make a negative and a positive and drive a car over it
So good. LOVE.
@ekla Hope you don’t mind me asking, did you use any adhesive on the copper or does it just stay in place with the hammering?
I found this cheap pre-made plaque today and thought it’d work well for this and you’ve inspired me to give it a try.
I don’t mind at all!
No adhesive needed for the copper, I cut the sheet about an inch extra large all around, and folded the edges to the backside, snipped corners, then taped those down blue tape (also keeps those razor sharp edges from slicing you as you work). I did glue my wood base parts together to keep them from shifting around.
Please post pics of your version !
If you find you want to try the doming punches (handy for getting into the details) I got this set, with their usual HF 20% off coupon it was only $37.
https://www.harborfreight.com/25-piece-doming-block-and-punch-set-93539.html
Oh cool, I’m going to give this a shot for sure. I’ve never worked with metal like this so it’ll be an interesting learning experience. Thanks for the tips!
As if I needed yet ANOTHER friggin’ rabbit hole! Jeez!
Stunning piece. I aspire!