anyone out there know of a food safe tinning compound/solution for copper - I know how to do the time honored melted tin method, but, had heard about a tinning brush-on solution and can't find one oth

Close-up of the rivets - you can see that I did not completely clean the copper of all oxides (rustic look is okay with me).

Photo of rear and ceiling heat shields of copper.

Hi,

I am a complete newbie to working metal, and I think I may have got in over my head!  Actually, my project is to create a copper heat shield for behind our corner woodstove. I thought it would allow us to have the stove closer to the wall, and also look nice. I bought a 3' X 8' sheet of 20 oz copper, cut it in half (I need a final shield size of about 4' X 6'), nailed each half to a piece of plywood (with cardboard in-between), and starting hammering one half with a ball-peen hammer to texture it. I guess I missed the part about copper work-hardening before I started this project, but it has become apparent that the sheet I'm working on is going to need annealing, maybe more than once. I'm hoping that it will be easier to work than when I started, if I can get it annealed, because this project is turning out to be A LOT of heavy hammering. The sheet is stiff, pulling up (hard) around the edges, springy, and very hard to make any kind of dent in, at the moment.