It's Hinge Time Again

I won't go into the intensely frustrating time I had in fabricating the hinge. All I'll say is that once again appealing to the 'God of Soldering' pays dividends...

Here's a montage of the steps in pulling the hinge together;

Initial alignment

Opening the Egg

I've finally got back around to working on the copper egg I made a couple of months back.

Today, I split the egg in two to form the lid and base of a box;

I marked out the split with a scribe then used a fine saw blade to progressively move around the circumference, cutting deeper on each orbit. Finally separating the two parts.

The next stage is to add the supports for the hinge. A piece of metal is needed to space the hinge away from the body of the box to allow it to open.
Here are pictures showing the fitting of these parts to the lid and base;

One side of the spacer is cut to fit the curve of the box, the other is flat to accommodate the hinge knuckles.

To ensure both parts of the box close firmly, a Besel Strip is added. This inner ring provides a tight mechanical fit to keep both halves together.

And now, both sides placed together. At this point the Besel Strip is too big, so will have to be filed down a little to allow the box to close properly.

Since the box is not 'closed' firmly, the spacers look wide apert, once properly in place, they will come together.

Next step......the hings knuckles.....!

OrganoCup External Finish

I've spent quite a lot of time trying to apply a finish to the outside of the cup. I've been using Platinol to try to oxidize the surface to give it a grey metallic finish. Unfortunately, for some reason, despite a lot of cleaning and sanding of the outer surface, I've been unable to get full coverage of the cup. I got a lof of flaking and uneven coloring of the surface. I the end, I decided to make a virtue of the blotchiness of the surface and here are the results.

 

The inside of the Cup needs another sanding with Scotchbrite...however, this is what it looks like at the moment;

OrganoCup

I've been playing with copper bowls and this is the result;

...and finally the Box in a Box Prototype

After a long time, I've finally managed to finish off the box in a box. The following pictures show some of the features of the finished piece.
As this is a prototype for a silver version, I can only speculate how long it will take to finish the final piece.......

 The outer box, contains a small tubular box, which is held in position by three spars which are capped on the outside of the box.

 The internal box is cylindrical and has a stand-off hinge similar to the outer box, but I made a peg fastener to hole the lid in place, which you can see in the picture below.

The following shots show the inner box opened an a bit more of the interior of the external box...

A New Project

Dear Reader(s).....I am still working on the previous box within a box, but the other night I had a flash of inspiration and have started another box project which I'd like to share with you...

The question is....what should go inside?

Assembling the Two Boxes

This post is to bring you up to date with my progress since the hinge debacle...

I managed to finish the stand-off hings but it required me to take off all the knuckles and start again. But, with that hing in place, I've been able to move on and make the inner box. this is tubular and designed to sit inside the outer box. It will be held in place by six rods which will be screwed into the body of the inner box and held in place on the outside of the outer box by a set of hemispherical 'features'.
The following pictures show the inner box (without its lid) inside the outer, with the first of the holding rods in place. In the first picture, you can see one end of the rod protruding into the inner box, having passed through the outer wall. this picture also gives you a good view of the outer box hinge.

The next picture gives a view of the rod from the outside of the outer box, with the fixing feature in place. The rod will of course have to be trimmed to size.

The final picture, above, shows the rod passing through both boxes in a bit more detail as well as showing the smaller standoff hinge on the inner box.

Hinges and the God of Soldering

Trouble today with a standoff hinge....that's what I get for not appeasing the God of Soldering...

 The third knuckle, as you can see, failed to solder properly and dropped off...

Another Bit of Ad Hoc Smithing

In a bit of post Show and Tell activity, I just started playing around with some copper and have ended up with the following 'object'...

It started off as.....surprise, surprise, another box, originally inspired by a pine cone, but it seems to have got out of control somewhat.

It looks to me a little like some sort of telescope, but I'm at a bit of a loss about where to take it next.

I'd appreciate some suggestions from my large and loyal collection of followers....

Open Studio

I'm showing off some of my work in an Open Studio event at the weekend. Here is a picture of the pieces I'm think about exhibiting. What does my wide and diverse audience think...?

Inside the box

I decided to go down the same arty route as the last box, but with a little extra.  I liked the green patina that I got from the Copper sulphate in the last box, so I added a layer on the bottom of the box, painting a solution onto the inner surface and heating it with a heat gun to get the green finish.

I thought I'd make an insert for the box which fuses metal with the wooden platform. My first attempt resulted in disaster as just as I got the metal box into it's wooden housing, the wood shattered.
The picture below is the second version, using a different type of wood and a smaller copper box.

So, with the insert in place, this is what the box looks like now...

And to give an idea of how it looks opening and closing...

Hinging the Box

After finally sealing the overall box shape the next stage is to cut it apart again to give me two halves that meet neatly together.

The photograph shows the top half of the box with a piece of copper tubing lined up along one side to provide me with an idea of the length necessary to make the hinge for the box. Its sitting on another sheet of copper acting as a spacer to position the hinge tube in the right position to join both halves of the box.

...and then...with a prayer to the god of soldering and a lot of luck and swearing, the high knuckles are soldered to each side of the box. With that done, the box now looks like this;

The inner tube has been left deliberately long so I can easily take the box apart again whilst I work on the next stages.