[Woodworkers] Copper metal working

[chuck.steger at gmail.com]

Hope everyone is safe and healthy!

   I need some advice on working solid copper. I’ll give you some context on
what I’m doing.

   I designing and building a Heritage Box for someone. Everything that goes
into the design and construction will have some elements from their cultural
background. Their mother and grandparents lived and worked in a copper
mining town in Chile and copper was a big part of their lives. To bring
copper into the design, I will attach the legs to the box using copper rods.
Since the legs taper, I will use 1/8”, 3/16”, and ¼” rods and leave a ¼” gap
between the legs and box. But this is subtle and I wanted to add something
else. So I want to add a copper sphere at the top of the box. I drew up the
design full scale and the sphere looks good at ¾”. So, I started researching
copper spheres and what I found are jewelry spheres ½” and less or solid
spheres 1” and greater. I ordered the 1” spheres which are actually used for
plating copper.

   So here are some of my issues/questions/concerns:

*	Is there any way possible to reduce the diameter? I thought about
some kind of holding contraption on a lathe and then using files but that
just sounds like a bad idea.
*	The sphere weights in at 3 oz. Now that may seem light but it’s a
little heftier that I wanted because I don’t want it to tip the box over
when hinged open. The box footprint will be 8”x12” so it may be OK. I will
build a prototype as I always do so I’ll find out. Also with a prototype it
will be easy to see if 1” is too big. A ¾” hollow sphere would be perfect
but I can’t find that.
*	Will solid copper drill OK? I would like to drill a hole for a rod
to anchor the sphere to the box. I will epoxy the sphere to a cradle but a
rod would be so much more secure IMO. And, given the weight, I would feel
better.
*	Here’s another take 
. Is there a way to cut the sphere in ½” I only
have WW bandsaws so even with a metal blade, WW bandsaws run too fast, don’t
they? The thought process here is maybe I take the two half spheres and
attach them to the side of the box as an adornment. The design will be
mostly Asian so spheres might look good. 

   So you can see the design is in total flux. I’ve started building the
prototype out of pine.

 

Chuck

 

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