My attempt at metal flowers

[mnt]

Every year our friends have a tiki party, and I make the prizes. The prizes go to best tiki drink, appetizer and attire.

This year I thought I'd try to make some copper hibiscus flowers. I used 2 inch copper pipe that I annealed and cut into the petals. Welded them on to the flower stem and shaped them. Then I used a couple different patina methods to get the colors. The whole patina process can be a bit finicky.

[lsf_design]

Those are really cool!

[Milkbone]

Beautiful


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DSW]

Those are great. I'm trying to get my hands on more copper flashing to try different types of flowers. Do you have a pattern for the pedals you can share with the rest of us? I'd also be curious about what you did for the patina. I love the color.

[OPUS FERRO]

mnt

Taller stem: its scale & base, competes
with your art-form.

Plug weld the stem to the bottom of the
cross-beam - and weld the cross-beam
from underneath to the ring.

This eliminates distracting weld quality
from your art form.


Opus

[BD1]

Great job ! The colors turned out super. Winners will get a real treat.

[tanglediver]

mnt

Taller stem: its scale & base, competes
with your art-form.

Plug weld the stem to the bottom of the
cross-beam - and weld the cross-beam
from underneath to the ring.

This eliminates distracting weld quality
from your art form.


Opus

This. Very nice, all the same.

[engineer1984]

Very cool. I like orange

[Equilibrium]

Beautiful mnt!

[weldermike]

Nice!

[spitek60]

That is super cool. Thanks for sharing.

[Robert Hall]

Super nice use of the patinas. If you don't mind, what were the processes used?

[mnt]

Thank You all for the kind words

Those are great. I'm trying to get my hands on more copper flashing to try different types of flowers. Do you have a pattern for the pedals you can share with the rest of us? I'd also be curious about what you did for the patina. I love the color.

Sorry, no pattern. I looked at lots of pictures of hibiscus, and cut out heavy paper petals in what I thought was the right shape. I then made a paper one to see how it would go together. I used 3 different processes for the patinas. Heat, salt and ammonia fumes, and mixture of salt, vinegar and ammonia. More down below.

mnt

Taller stem: its scale & base, competes
with your art-form.

Plug weld the stem to the bottom of the
cross-beam - and weld the cross-beam
from underneath to the ring.

This eliminates distracting weld quality
from your art form.


Opus

Opus, thanks, good observations. It's funny, I had the stems about twice as long, and cut them shorter. I have my original sample one left on a longer stem, Ill put it together and see how that looks. I didn't want the negative space between the base and the flower. It felt like I would need to add leaves, and I didn't want to. I'll post pics of a taller one with no leaves and see how it comes out.

Great point on the plug weld from the bottom. That is a complete "duh" and I should have thought of it.

Super nice use of the patinas. If you don't mind, what were the processes used?

Patinas - green, mix up salt ammonia and vinegar. I used a equal parts vinegar and ammonia and dumped a good handful of table salt in it. put it in a sprayer and sprayed the copper. This gives green. For blue, get the copper wet, sprinkle with table salt and suspend in a bucket with a little ammonia in the bottom, so the piece is not in the ammonia but above. Seal the bucket. (I Used aluminum foil) and check in a couple hours. These were both overnight. The other was heat colored, and the colors were fantastic. Much better than they are now, but the clear coat really muted them. I am working on a red patina using water and borax, but so far have not got it right. The key thing is to soak the copper in vinegar to get it clean, then try not to touch it until after the patinas are done.

[engineer1984]

The first patina is really cool. The phone didn't do it justice. I'm sure internet photos don't either.

These are really cool though. Good job.

Are you going to put the base in a flower pot with dirt / spanish moss etc to cover up the base?

[mnt]

The first patina is really cool. The phone didn't do it justice. I'm sure internet photos don't either.

These are really cool though. Good job.

Are you going to put the base in a flower pot with dirt / spanish moss etc to cover up the base?

Thanks.

I thought about the flower pot idea, but these have the party date on the base, so I'll leave them as is. If the winners want to "plant" them, they can do that. Besides, flower pots aren't metal

[Barn118]

Those are very very very nice! Great work!

[mnt]

Those are very very very nice! Great work!

Thank you. Party is tomorrow, so hopefully they go over well. Nobody knows what the prize will be each year, so it is always a surprise.