Hi Jake,
I'm using a cheap chinese inverter (hate myself for that, but what do you do?!),It's 180 amp pulse machine, and it needs about all of it's amps for welding this 1.5mm copper.
I don't want to display too much of my ignorance here, as I'm working it out as I go along, but I think the copper's a bit weird to weld, as although it's got a comparatively low melting point, it transfers the heat away from the weld area very quickly?
I've got upslope and downslope controls, but a footpedal would really help to continually vary the amps according to how preheated the bit I'm welding is by the bit behind it(if you know what I mean ? That said, a footpedal's not so practical away whe you'refrom the bench, clambering over a tree!
Having said that, now I've experimented and found the right settings on the welder, and got used to it, I'm getting reasonably neat weld in all sorts of positions - so I think it's pretty intuitive !

Will Jones, www.ironwill.org.uk

Will,
Good to see you are having a good start on your tree. Fun looking to do texture, what thickness again is the copper? Man lots of TIG hours going to go into that thing. Good luck!
warren
http://www.metalrecipes.com

Thanks Warren - Your work is the inspiration for this project!

I was just getting to the stage of thinking - I wonder if I should ask Warren how long his tree took ?

Right now the geometry of blending the the main branches into the trunk is costing me a lot of thinking time - but I'll be through that soon. The other intensely frustrating thing is trying to hold/clamp odd shaped bits of copper to an odd shaped tree long enough to tack'em on.

I'm quite pleased with the texture - just did random squiggles with a blunt rounded chisel in the air hammer, over a piece of carpet, on the inside so it kinda rolls up the sections as I go along, work hardens the sheet (1.5mm),
and doesn't show too many of my judders and mis-hits on the outside. Will ease off the texturing as I go up the tree though.
I've got the trunk braced internally with stainless steel struts so I hope it'll be strong enough!

Keep wishing me luck !

Will Jones, www.ironwill.org.uk

Will,
On my tree it took a quite a bit of time, about 5 months worth. But see I have a day job so I could only work on it a few nights a week and on weekends. Then I had the snake and apples and 450 plus leaves.
The actual making of the tree went pretty easy. Like you said though the transition to the branches is the tricky part. Lots of thin poster board to make templates was the simple solution.
For holding sections in place, there ain't nothing like an inner tube cut in strips. Just use them as big rubber band. Smell a little when they get hot but not as bad as skin.
Have fun making the curve branches ........little raising here and there and a little anti clastic raising over there and there.

warren
http://www.metalrecipes.com

Warren,

"Then I had the snake and apples" Warren seems the snakes getting a bad rap again. :)

Will,

The tree looks great!

Fred

Fred Zweig
Metalsmith
Musings of a Metalsmith
http://fredz49.blogspot.com/