ArtMetal

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