College Art Project: Need information on welding pure copper pennies for art project...

Pebbles B. - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 7:46am

HI :)

I am an art student doing a material exploration project, and the material I chose is pre-1983 pure copper pennies. I have thought of casting them, but I want to keep the original art of the penny as well, so I am going to weld them instead. Correct me if I am wrong. Like I said this is an experiment for me. I am usually an art student who studies glass.

These are my questions:
1) Do I 'need' an oxygen torch? Or can I use a small regular torch?
(I have access to an oxygen torch at school in the Flame-working room)
2) Should I use 'flux' for welds?
(I need strong welds, to hold weight, I may be doing a furniture-sculpture piece)
3) What kind of tool should I use to hold both pennies in place for welding, or should I clamp them in place before I start the weld?
4) Also in places on my piece will curve,
so I would like to know the best process of bending pennies without contorting them

Any details you can give would be a HUGE help to me,
and getting me prepared for this process safely.
Also, if anyone in the Toronto/Mississauga/Oakville area has a metal studio with proper equipment I could pay to use (mentoring me) would be a huge help. But I know that won't happen, so any advise would help in how to do this project would be wonderful please and thank you.

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penny glue

Jaybird - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 9:33am

Pebbles, I tig welded 7 pennys together about 8 mo ago for a lady. She used older wheat straw pennys. Easy job. Using a torch and brazing might be tough to get color match, but I dont know as I have never tried. Dont worry, somebody on this site will have done this befor. jay

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Hi Pebbles and welcome to

eligius1427 - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 3:50pm

Hi Pebbles and welcome to Artmetal.

1). I think Jay is right, I think your best bet is to tig weld the pennies together. I'm sure there is a way to use an O/A torch, but I'm betting that the TIG will give you much better and cleaner results. You might check to see if there is a Coop studio/shop space in your area that has welding equipment you could use, particularly a tig machine.

2) I know you wouldn't need flux with tig welds, not sure about O/A welding with copper.

3) If you're tig welding you could probably use needle nose Vice-Grips to hold the pennies while you tack them or you could make simple clamping jigs out of 18-20ga steel strips 1-2" wide which you could bend/form by hand.

4) I'm not sure you would have to bend a penny to create a curved surface. The penny is only about 1/2" across, so you could create nice comfortable curves using the plain old flat pennies, kind of like a polygon with really short sides.

Hope this helps a little and be sure to post some picts of your project. I'm really curious to see what you create.

Jake

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You can TIG weld the pennies

visitor - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 8:29pm

You can TIG weld the pennies together and you don't need flux. You would use copper wire as your welding rod.

You can also solder pennies with an O/A torch. You would use flux when soldering. You can use silver solder or there is red brass solder that may look better. I have not seen a copper solder. To solder the pennies together the strongest joint will be made by having more area touching so you should file flat spots on the edges where you will solder.

You can curve pennies before soldering by using a dapping block.

Betty

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Need someone to do personal project

visitor - Friday, January 2, 2009 - 12:09am

I am looking for a student to make a copper/metal type of Chinese Dragon to use as a coat rack. This is not a big project but just for personal use with a Chinese shoe box below the sculpture. I do not want to spend a fortune but would like some detail in the dragon. I can give more information if you answer this.

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weldding pure copper penneys.

visitor - Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 8:36pm

A T.I.G. welder is the to go if you do not access to one the old fassion way is to use siver solider. If you go this route you will need silver bearing flux. good luck

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TIG and torch welding are

don johnson - Friday, April 17, 2009 - 9:58pm

TIG and torch welding are similar procedures. O/A and O/Propane will work fine. I would suggest Harris type 0 rod for best color match and it will resist coming appart at nearby joints. The welding will soften the pennies and make them easy to bend at the edges. No flux is needed.

Don

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