Brass Sheeting | Quick Ship Metals News-Blog

Scrapbooks Say 'I Love You' - copper adds the color

Oct 272011

Cool nights and falling leaves mean the holiday season is fast approaching and with these fun-filled events comes the anxiety of what to give the special people in your life. If you have a tough time coming up with good ideas for gifts that produce more than a yawn when they’re opened, consider the gift that says “I love you” in a special way and most importantly will not become a “re-gifting” item stuck in a closet.

Copper can be applied with a variety of glues and you can even find glue with copper flake that dries to create an embossed finish.

One of the best ways to add color, texture and variety to a scrapbook is by using copper foil, copper sheeting, copper wire, specialty copper ornaments and embellishments created for this popular hobby. If copper isn’t the color you’re looking for, QuickShipMetals.com carries brass foil and aluminum foil and just added stainless steel foil for a more modern techno kind of look.

Memories are the greatest gift you can give, especially to parents or grandparents, but friends and even children love them as well. The best way to preserve and share memories is with a beautiful scrapbook filled with photos and memorabilia that record the important moments in a life well lived. Scrapbooks are a very popular hobby now because it’s fun and it creates a treasure that will become a family heirloom as time goes by.

These colorful and artfully decorated collections may seem daunting at first, but there are many web pages and whole sites dedicated to helping you find that creative artist that is yearning to escape. Here are some suggestions I’ve found inspirational.

The key to pulling off a successful scrapbook project begins with sorting photos you want to use and putting them in an appropriate order for the story you want to tell. It may be chronological for a grandparent or perhaps just a fun book celebrating a child’s birthday. Once you’ve got the images you want to use in the order, the next step is to decide on a theme or color scheme that enhances the story or concept you want to tell.

Copper, brass or aluminum foil can be used to add a metallic frame around a photo, and razzle-dazzle to any page.

One way to tackle this important step is to look for things that trigger an emotional response or personal connection. Stores like Hobby Lobby and others carry huge sections set aside for scrapbooking and it won’t take long for you to find items that work perfectly for your personal design.

You’ll be looking for background colors as well as embellishments for the pages that augment the story or simply add a decorative color or texture. Something as simple as taking a piece of copper wire and bending it into the letters you want to words you want to spell out can really enhance a page.

Framing a photo with copper foil can really make an image stand out, but it also creates an emphasis on the page that is quite dramatic. Little things like copper brads, beads, and sheeting are ideal for creating eye-popping pages your loved ones will treasure for a lifetime.

Copper foil and copper sheeting is easy to work with, adds beautiful color and texture.

Using a piece of thin copper sheeting, you can create a wreath effect for framing an image that is quite dramatic. All it requires is a blunt metal stylus or even a pencil will work if it is sufficiently rounded on the point. Working from the back side with the copper on a soft surface such as a stack of newspaper pages, draw on the metal slowly and carefully to create the wreath pattern. Once the wreath pattern is complete, and the photo attached, you can add colorful flowers to complete the garland effect.

The key to pulling off a stunning scrapbook is to let your imagination run wild and most importantly to have fun. One thing I’ve found to be true with any project I’ve tackled is starting early is critical to enjoying it from beginning to end. If you wait until a week before it is due you’ll create a lot of anxiety and feel so much pressure that you’ll not enjoy yourself and take shortcuts that are disappointing in the end. Plan on doing only one page at a time and you’ll find they stack up quickly.

One tip for layout is to position a photo on a page so the people in the shot are looking onto the page and not off. If the person in the photo is looking directly at the camera it is not as critical, but if they are looking to one side or the other, your page will look more balanced if you position the photo on the page so they are looking onto it and not out of the book’s page.

For all of your scrapbooking projects that call for copper foil, brass foil, aluminum foil, stainless steel foil or copper sheeting, you’ll find the best selection and the best prices and fastest shipping at QuickShipMetals.com. If you’ve never worked with copper or other types of foils in the manner, you might want to get a feel for the various thicknesses that are available. QSM offers a sample pack of copper foil, and a number of different decorative patterns are available in a decorative copper sample pack as well. Since you’re starting your scrapbook project early, you’ve got plenty of time to experiment!

For other ornamental copper items such as beads, letters and brads, go to your local hobby shop or simple do a Google search for scrapbooking with copper!

Copper Patina - An Art Form Itself

Metal Art

Feb 162011

Celestial Ouranios, an 18" x 24" patina on brass was created by controlling the application of patina solution with paper strips.

While some may consider a patina to be a gratuitous closure to a work that is already finished, copper artist Stefan Alexandres has turned the patina into an art form of its own. Two pieces that serve as an example of this are “Divine”, and “Celestial Ouranios,” two 18”x24” patinas on brass that he created by using a common technique with a subtle twist he developed on his own.

To create these two pieces Alexandres used strips of paper to mask parts of the metal’s surface to control where he wanted the patina is formed. He simply applies the strips of paper and dampens them so they will stick. No glue or adhesive is used. Once the patina has been applied and left to dry the paper comes off easily to reveal the results of this masking technique.

Alexandres advises, “There are many ways to finish copper. Sometimes I leave a piece of sculpture or repoussé unfinished and live with it for a while to consider what type of treatment I will give it.”

One option that he sometimes uses involves paint.

Suspicious Circumstances is a 28x" 28" x 3.5" repousse on copper.

“Metal can be painted. Often I will use a clear base such as varnish, after cleaning the metal’s surface. After the base has dried I use oil paint and wash it out with a damp cloth to leave the paint in the indentations.”

While this technique can add variety to the options for coloration, Alexandres cautions that paint is not permanent. “Paints are made of pigments, and any pigment exposed to light will fade in time. Patinas are created from minerals and therefore the affect created by minerals will last over time.”

Another technique Alexandres uses to add variations and interest to a patina involves rubbing and removing areas to create highlights and subtle changes in the colors or patterns. This can be accomplished by using a scotch bright pad, steel wool or a wire brush on an electric wheel, but he cautions anyone wanting to use this technique to use a protective mask to prevent inhaling the dust created by this process, which can be laden with caustic chemicals that can damage the lungs.

Alexandres stresses the importance of developing your own style and experimenting with both the affects of various formulas as well as the way they’re applied. “What I’m doing with patinas works for me. Maybe some other artists are doing it differently,” he said.

"Man from Poetry" is a 28" x 28" repousse on copper with a patina created by heating the metal with a torch. Note the intricate detail in the two faces at the bottom of the shell.

He also recommends metal artists consider the options of applying patinas, stressing that “Patina’s can be applied either cold or hot, and the results can be very different.”

He also notes that patinas can be created from simple sources. “The water in Florida is very rich in sulfur. On a hot summer day if you coat a piece of copper with water that is rich in sulfur and leave it in the sun, you will see an incredible patina form.”

Alexandres also uses commercially prepared patinas that he purchases from ronyoungpatina.com. After he applies these formulas he uses a solution of baking soda diluted in water to neutralize the action and stop the development of the patina. Take a container of water sufficient to cover the area you are working with and add baking soda while stirring until the crystals no longer dissolve, then apply it to the metal’s surface, wash with clear water and let dry.

Patinas are an ancient technique, but how you use them does not have to be governed by tradition, previous methods or rules that limit creativity. Another great thing about patinas is they not immutable. If you don’t like the results, you can always start over or alter the results by removing parts or adding other minerals to change the affect. The important thing to remember is that a creative work that is rattling around in your head needs to come out. Buy some copper sheeting or brass sheeting and create a piece of metal art today.

QuickShipMetals.com has a great selection of copper sheeting and copper foil, as well as brass sheeting that will please even the most demanding creative spirit.

Only Brass Could Protect this Beauty

Fun Projects

Jul 072010

By Frank Ross

From stem to stern, this wood, canvas and brass beauty is stunning.

For Jerry Fruetel his recently completed canoe project was a labor of love with a long courtship. Jerry built the mold and began the project 18 years ago, and just took it on its maiden voyage this past month. “I’m like that wine company with the ad campaign that said, ‘We’ll serve no wine before its time’ but for me I serve no canoe before its time,” he said with a laugh.

“This was my first canoe and I wanted to take my time and not make any fatal errors,” he said. That fatal error almost happened, but cooler heads and hot water prevailed. After the ribs and planks had been attached, Jerry had to take a break for a couple of months. He set the canoe upright on saw horses but the cedar was so soft that the weight created a 1” dent in each end. “I thought I had ruined it, but I called a master canoe builder for advice.

Once the ribs are steamed and nailed to the gunwales, it looks like the ribs of a whale.

The solution was to create some temporary bracing to push the wood back out and pour buckets of boiling water over the damaged wood. When the wood dried out, the dents had come out and I was very relieved,” he said.

The first step to building a wood and canvas canoe is building the mold, which is essentially like another canoe, with the exception that it weighs about 300 pounds. The project lived in his garage and he worked on it when he had time off from his career with Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Minnesota.

Once he retired six years ago, the pace of the work became more regular and meaningful as well.

The mold is made of ¾” square strips of pine. Jerry explains the process that starts with attaching the inside gunwales, or rails, to the mold. Then 52 cedar ribs are steamed, bent over the mold, and the ends are nailed to the gunwales of the canoe. The result looks much like the skeleton of a whale.

Only brass could protect this beauty!

Once the ribs are in place, cedar planking is attached to the ribs to form the hull, and canvas is stretched over. The canvas is then sealed with a thick paint-like filler that hardens like slate. The final steps for most canoe builders would be adding the finishing touches with a quality marine paint and varnish, but Jerry wanted this canoe to be special. “I’ve got about 500 total hours in the project over all these years. I could have finished it sooner, but I did some inlay work. I inlaid the Canadian Maple Leaf in decorative cherry on one end and the American Eagle on the other,” he said.

The tools of the trade, and the results of their proper application.

In his native Minnesota there are many large boulders to be navigated around, and occasionally they can’t be avoided, so Jerry wanted to protect this beauty along the nose and tip of each end. “Some guys use copper for the end cap, and that’s a great metal to finish off a canoe, but I thought brass might offer more protection since it is a harder metal. I wanted to use 20 gauge, but I contacted Quick Ship Metals and got some good advice on which thickness to use, and learned about the annealing process. That’s where the metal is heated red hot and then cooled down. That makes it softer and much easier to bend and form. As you tap on it with a hammer to form it, the metal gets hard again. I used the 24 gauge brass sheeting. It was great to work with and really looks nice.”

Jerry loves the smell of wood and making sawdust, but the wood he loves the most is a paddle in his hands. “I know people who build canvas canoes that don’t care to paddle, but I love to take mine out. I had read about them being quiet and smooth. It is that for sure, but it’s also faster than I thought it would be and it really handles great.

Jerry takes his canoe for a turn on the Mississippi River.

“My ambition is to turn my love of working in wood and making canoes into a service to charities in our area. These canoes sell from $3,000 to $8,000 depending on how they’re finished out. I want to make 10 over the next few years and donate them to be used for charity fund raisers,” he said.

Based on the beauty of this brass appointed masterpiece, I’m betting the bidding will be brisk!

The decorative and protective uses for brass and copper are almost endless. If you’ve got a project that needs protecting, contact our customer service staff for answers to any questions you may have about these metals. The call is toll-free. 1-888-334-2177.