Making things look old! - Ageing Copper and other metals
Antiqued, Aged, Patina'd, essentially making things look old!
Today I'd like to show and tell you about a really cool technique I love to use on some of my finished pieces of Jewellery.
When I start a new piece of jewellery the wire is generally very polished and shiny, depending on if it's new or if it's been left out. Now a lot of people seem to find the polished finish desirable in a piece of jewellery and I can understand that however personally, I love the antique aged colours of copper.
Patina
Now the reason Copper changes colour or 'tarnishes' is due to the oxygen in the air reacting with the surface of the metal. The tarnish on copper is known as a 'Patina' and depending on the conditions you can get a range of different colours.
Natural Patina
The best looking patina in my eyes comes from wearing a piece of jewellery day by day for months so that the oils in your skin and the movement of the piece naturally tarnish the metal.
This piece I kept for myself is a great example of a natural patina, it's such a beautiful shade of brown.
Chemical Patina
It's not always practical to wear all my pieces before selling them so there are other, much quicker methods to get similar, potentially better, results using chemicals.
Liver of Sulphur is a foul-smelling liquid I use to blacken copper or silver in seconds. If it didn't smell quite so bad it would be great fun to use. (think heavily rotten eggs x10)
Also useful to know it is Corrosive so I use tweezers and scrap wire to move things in and out of the bowls.
So here's the setup, on the left is the liver of sulphur, on the right some fresh water to rinse off any excess after being dipped.
First off I plunge the item into the liver of sulphur for about 10 seconds.
Here's a before...
And after...
As you can see all the copper has tarnished so strongly it's gone black. I've seen some artists leave it at this which can look pretty cool. I prefer to go in with wire wool or an abrasive cloth to highlight bits of the metal. You can see the difference it makes...
A bit more polishing and I think this one is done.
If you're interested in some more detail photos before the patina of the pendant featured you can do so here: https://steemit.com/art/@robali123/steem-punk-pendant-artexplosion-entry-time
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thanks! glad to have found another maker community on here
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Release the Kraken! You got a 2.30% upvote from @seakraken courtesy of @robali123!
Nice to see this! I did copper tooling long, long time ago in an art class and started thinking about integrating tooled copper into some leather work. I did a little research, bought some materials and conveniently you have answered my "what do you age it with" question I had. Thanks!
Glad to have helped! You can also use a boiled egg in a sealed container with the item so I've read! Takes a couple of days to work though
Great work!
thanks man. how you getting on with steem follower? have you got your head around how it works yet? took me a little while!
Taking baby steps..still figuring out Steemit altogether.
good work
plz check my blog and upvote
Congratulations, your post received 18.52% up vote form @spydo courtesy of @robali123! I hope, my gratitude will help you getting more visibility.
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This post has received a 0.92 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @robali123.
Pretty sweet!
I’d love to purchase something from you!
Thanks!
I've just updated the post to include my etsy shop link, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/tuskandclaw alternatively, i'd be happy to accept cryptocurrency. If theres something you like that isn't on my etsy, give me a shout as I probably just haven't got round to putting it up yet,
I love your style! And your shop, too. I marked it as favorite, and I'll be following your work here :-)
You're welcome to check out my shop, or follow me here if you like my stuff and want to keep in touch. I'd really like that.