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.

Not So Much a Box as a Kettle

Having made two halves using the die I showed in the last post, the next job is to solder them together to make a box. I cut out a thin strip to go around the outside of the box plan shape to form the wall between top and bottom and then soldered the two halves to it.

In the photo above, you can see the bottom half of the box already soldered to the side wall. I hammered the central portion of this half flat to make a flat surface for the box to rest on. Once the strip was soldered in place, I trimmed off the excess of the copper plate (the part where the screws fixed the plate to the die) and started the process of soldering the bottom and the wall to the top of the box to make a completely sealed box.

After soldering I quench the box in water. This also lets me check to see if there are any gaps in the soldering. If there is water in the box after quenching, I've got a hole. Finding the hole (it's often very small) or holes, is a matter of heating the box up again with the water still inside. The effect is like an old style whistling kettle. As the water evaporates, steam comes whistling out of the hole.

This box is proving to be riddled with holes around the top edge of the wall. Third time trying to plug them, I hoping next time will get them all.

The following photograph is of the box end on so you can see the different profiles of top and bottom.