When I was in metalsmithing school, my instructor taught us how to make copper bowls out of sheet metal using a tree stump.  A round bowl-shape was carved out of the stump and then we used planishing hammers to form the sheet inside the bowl-shape.  I just got a nice 3 foot high by 2 foot wide maple tree stump so that I can start making bowls again.  Does anyone know what I need to do to carve out the bowl shape?  Do I need to let the wood dry out before I start carving?  If so, for how long.  And what tools do I use to get a nicely shaped form.  And how do I get it smooth enough so that it won't put marks on my copper? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Diane 

Carve it while it's green. If you let it dry the wood will be too hard. I used the tip of my chain saw to rough out the shape then refined it with a chisel. The hammering of the metal with a ball peen hammer in the depression smoothed out the chisel marks. Good luck. Judie Raiford www.RaifordGallery.com

Thanks for the tip - I was going to wait until it dried out since I used to do woodworking and that's intuitively what I would do if I were making furniture.  I'll post a pic when I finish.   I love this forum!

Diane 

 

 

 

 

We have two of those stumps in the studio I work in. Planishing hammers are not for sinking and forming, they are strictly for planishing, on the outside of the holloware form. That's why both faces of the planishing hammer have a mirror finish on them, one flat head and one slightly domed. Doing courses of plainshing will leave small round overlapping flat marks on the surface of your metal, which you can leave in or file and then sand off. Mira Mimlitsh-Gray (sp?), has made artmetal work that magnifies the art of planish marks.

There are hammers made just for sinking and forming. Have you got stakes to work with after the initial sinking and forming is done?

If you've worked on a wood lathe, copper is soft enough you can spin form your bowls, against your own wood forms, and there is a whole lot of additional information that goes with that process as well.

Lu Ann M.

 What is the best gauge to use when making a copper bowl to enamel?

Also, I'm interested in taking a class to learn about making copper bowls from a flat piece of metal. I have no luck finding workshops by googling "Making copper bowls." Any suggestion on how to find a workshop?

Jude

 

Take a look here; http://davidhuang.org/gallery2/main.php . David Huang does beautiful work and has a simple "how to" section to show folk how he does it. I hope that this helps.