Bill,

I love the process of raising and have made several bowl and bowl sequences to demonstrate the process. It requires far less tools than I once used and I will gladly photograph my stakes and hammers. I am currently forging 10 neck collars for retailers here in town and one out of state. When I finish I will have time to take the images and post them.

Fred

I'd love to see the process you use to make even the simple bowls. They are all beautiful. I have been lurking on this site for a couple of days. I make tabletop fountains out of antique or vintage arts and crafts style vessels and would like to learn to make some of them myself. I appreciate all the information I can get.

Eric

Forgot to log in.

Two more bowls:

6" dia. Petaled bowl in 18 gauge copper with deep buried patina. (This is the underside of the bowl I am using as my avatar)

3.5" dia patinated copper bowl with sterling rivets.

Fred

Fred Zweig
Metalsmith

MAN, Fred. I LOVE that "buried patina", it's beautiful. Keep em comin :)
Bill

Fred,

All of your bowls look fantastic. I also really enjoy raising. I started out after making a couple stakes and a raising hammer. Warren was very helpful in getting me started raising. Thanks Warren. I've since bought a couple more raising hammers but still use my homemade stakes. I've been thinking of buying a stake from Grobet.

I love that buried patina. How do you do that?

Thanks,
Walker

Walker,

Most of what you need to get in stakes can be made of 1.5" to 2" steel rod and an angle grinder to flatten one side of the radius. These can be held in a well mounted vice. I would advise against spending your money on stakes. Harbor Freight has two handled dollies for under $20 each that are a good buy and useful shapes. If you need to buy something buy several of these and reshape them. They are decent castings and polish nicely.

The patina is a solution of uniodized salt and ammonium cloride disolved in 3%-10% aqua ammonia. This is used to saturate wood shavings and the bowl is buried in this for several hours. I suggest testing it with scraps and making up your own formula using the same components and placing the clean scraps in a gallon zip-lock bag and record both formula and time. I will post a formula I have used and some samples in a few weeks after my workshop and order are done.

The patina will etch the copper and it is very tenacious and durable. These bowls have a bee's wax finish. The formulas are very forgiving and relatively safe. Ammonium cloride is also known as Sal Ammoniac and can be bought in cakes at hardwared stores for tining lead soldering irons.
3% aqua ammonia is household ammonia that is sold at the supermarkets.

Please be careful with using any chemicals since improper use could be dangerous.

Play safe!
Fred

Fred Zweig
Metalsmith

Fred,

Thanks for the info on stakes and the buried patina. Yeah, I like to hear people recommend not spending my hard earned money. I try to make whatever tools I can. With that in mind, I wanted to post a few pictures of the stakes I've made. Heres a couple pix of stakes for raising, one for sinking and couple for planishing. See below. I also have a couple of the HF dollies that I've shaped and used for planishing of different shaped forms.

Walker

raising stake: raising stake made from 2"x2" scrap steel....plate welded on bottom so it can be held with vice

raising stake: raising stake made from 1 1/2" diameter bolt

raising bench: raising bench with two vices for two stakes

sinking forms: sinking forms from old gas bottles for steel bowls

planishing stakes: stake for planishing raised bowls..from old gas bottle

planishing stakes: planishing stake made from old firefighters oxygen tank

Hi Fred,

When you advise to buy two handled dollies for under $20 each that are a good buy and useful shapes at Harbor Freight Tools. Do you mean ITEM 94354-0VGA, SWIVEL HANDLE FOR WOODEN DOLLY ?

Searching for "two handled dollies"didn't give any sensible result.
Love the idea of reshaping it.
I wonder if i can order from Canada

Antoine Lamarche
Montreal, Canada

Antoine,

The tools I think Fred is referring to are Harbor Freight items #93232-4VGA and 93219-0VGA, priced at $12.99 and $14.99, respectively. I have them both and they are very useful tools. It only takes a bit of grinding to make the "handles" on them fit my Gesswein stake holder.

I suggest that when you grind the handles, you work to get the handle as close as possible to parallel sides, rather than too tapered, so you can also clamp it securely in a vise. I ground mine so that they have a step in the shank, with the end portion the right size for the stake holder (about 7/8" square) and the remainder at just under 1" square so it fits the hardy hole on my big anvil.

Hope this helps you.

And I thought I was fairly fluent in English. To me a dolly has got wheels. Thank you very much for the info; I had forgotten about autobody shop tools ! these will be a welcomed supplement to my stakes and anvils.

I'm glad I discovered the ArtMetal site, and have the feeling that I will be spending countless hours exploring it and hopefully participating with my personal knowledge.

Antoine Lamarche RCA, Montreal

Welcome Antoine,

I gather you like sheet metal too.
Do you have a web site?

Gene Olson
Sculptor
Elk River, MN

Hi Gene,

no web site for the time being,
hopefully, will have it set for Christmas

I'm a sculptor and silversmith, work with copper and brass too.

Antoine

Walker,

I would not recommend you buy any stakes yet. If you need to spend money go to Harbour Freight and buy two of their bodyworking handled dollies. One is oval and the other is tear drop shaped and say Forged on the handles (though they are not) They are castings and good castings and polish up well. Oval/Football shape is $14.99 and the teardrop is $9.99.

You can make almost any shape you will need for raising from 1.5"-2" diameter rod in 3' lengths. Heat them up and bend into any contour you need and then grind off the top face with and angle grinder. I polish with a velcro attchment and 220 or 320 grid high speed hook & eye disks.

The patina is a solution of uniodized salt and ammonium chloride disolved in 3-10% aqua ammonia. Use the solution to saturate wood shavings and bury the piece in the shavings for a few hours.

Voila!

I will be more specific later after my orders and the pin workshop I am teaching is finished.

Fred

Fred Zweig
Metalsmith

Here is a twist on a standard bowl. The flutes were formed in the air and not on stakes or by filling the bowl with pitch.

4" diameter vessel 18 gauge (32oz)

Fred Zweig
Metalsmith

"GRIZZ"

Fantastic Work Fred, someday I'd like to come down and chat for a while, I know I'll be close to you in Nov. but I'll be extremely busy with the Scouts that weekend but I'll also be down in Jan, maybe then.