Garden Gate

hautsteel - Sunday, June 7, 2009 - 6:09pm

I thought I would share my latest project - a garden gate with a frog motif. At this point, I have most of the pieces cut, formed and ready for welding.

I have not yet made a final decision in regards to how I will patina the piece, so please feel free to offer your suggestions, keeping in mind, that both I, and my client enjoy natural colors and textures. I am thinking along the lines of a heated peanut oil for the frame, and perhaps letting the copper do its own thing... The more I look at this, I am tempted to re-create the frog out of copper as opposed to the steel piece seen in the photo - making it much easier to texture and patina. Hmm... what was I thinking? :-)

For those interested, you can follow the steps I took to arrive at this stage on my web site (view my profile for the url).

Garden Gate

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Garden Gate

visitor - Monday, June 8, 2009 - 1:31am

Copper if just let go to do it's own thing will be pretty ugly for the 2-4 years. You could force it but there is no guarantee that it will turn the way you want without going through it "ugly stage". I just had a gate with copper elements "rejected" by a client i did sub work on (Had to do further work on it and then seal it). Copper items were patinated and then left unsealed to "do their thing". The client didn't like the way the copper looked like dit was coming through. Ultimately patinated the pieces and sealed them. Client happy! Just be aware of how copper actually colorizes with age. Just a thought.

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I appreciate the suggestion.

hautsteel - Monday, June 8, 2009 - 10:11am

I appreciate the suggestion. Actually, I made some redwood trees for a gate a few years ago that had copper branches which I did patina and seal. Some copper on my own gate is going through its "ugly stage" right now ;-)

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garden gate

lin - Monday, June 8, 2009 - 1:32pm

Hi Dino, I love this gate, it has alot of charm. With copper and steel mixed together for outside use, do you run a risk of a reaction between the 2 metals? It seems to me I vaguely remember something about that from my welding class. Lin

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Thanks Lin - I appreciate

hautsteel - Monday, June 8, 2009 - 3:49pm

Thanks Lin - I appreciate the compliment!

Well, I am by no means an expert on the subject, but I believe what you are referring to is called "galvanic corrosion." In this particular case, I was not concerned about that, since the gate is so small and there are no structural support issues to contend with.

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patina

visitor - Monday, July 6, 2009 - 7:49pm

I'm taking a patina class at the moment. If it's not too corny for the frog to be green you could try Ohaguro as a base with Cupric Nitrate over it.) It makes a nice mottled yellowy brown green and then seal. You probably already know about Sculpt Nouveau Patinas...I think they have a UV sealer. The patinas have to be put on warm metal 500 degrees or so. Just my 2 cents, hope you don't mind. Claudia

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Hi Claudia, Thank you for

hautsteel - Friday, July 17, 2009 - 9:52am

Hi Claudia,
Thank you for your suggestions - I appreciate that.
I am familiar with Sculpt Nouveau and have experimented with many of their patina solutions. As a matter of fact, I think I am going to clean the metal up in a couple of days and try some of their "Japanese Brown" applied with heat to the gate frame and perhaps frog body - followed by some "Tiffany Green" on the body. S.N. has just sent me some of their new Permalac sealer, which has UV inhibitors and is environmentally friendly. I will post a pic of the completed gate next week. Have you tried any of their waxes or oils for metal yet?
Dino

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Frog Gate - Final results

hautsteel - Friday, August 7, 2009 - 4:15pm

Hello folks!

I thought I would share the outcome of the metal garden gate I created for a client in NC. You can follow most of the process by going to my web site (url in my profile), and then selecting: resources/gate building/garden gate

Hope you enjoy!

DinoGarden Gate: This photo illustrates the completed garden gate, after numerous applications of various patina solutions were applied and sealed.