I’ve played around with doing patina work here and there. The old salt, vinegar, lemon juice types of things. I’ve been getting into drawing up random stuff, little things here and there. I learned a lot on this project and while the results aren’t what I wanted I know where I went wrong.
When its all said and done I want this to be a very large wall piece. Learning from previous mistakes *ahem* I decided to cut it very small and practice with it. What?!
My wife says I need to leave the steel in the raw like it is in this photo. I can’t bring myself to do it most of the time. What do you think?
I was a powder coater years before I was a welder. I feel I’m leaving pieces incomplete by not painting them. My students at school tell me not to paint most of the items I make as well. Maybe its just me? *laughs*
Anyway, the first step for this was the basecoat – which I tried more than one. First in copper
Then in bronze. Mostly because I was figuring things out, trying different things. You know, like an experiement! I tried to lightly sand back the bronze on the high spots to let the copper show. It didn’t work. This coating has some really great adhesion! I know I could have masked it off a million different ways, I was just trying something different.
We ended up going back to copper before the patina. There are a ton of photos of the process but they raise more questions than answers. The finished product doesn’t look horrible, but it isn’t what I wanted.
