Anticlastic Copper Bangles

Following on from my post last week where I shared how I got on with making my first anticlastic bangle, here are my first anticlastic bangles to be listed in my Etsy shop.

I decided to go with a couple of favourite textures of mine for the copper - leaf vein and stripes.

The stripe texture is made using thin strips of masking tape. I stick a piece of the tape on my cutting board and using a metal ruler and a scalpel I cut way too many thins strips. I always do too many because I forget about the gaps :D

With the help of a pair of tweezers I pick up the strips and stick them to the annealed copper. It's a bit of a slow job but quite therapeutic. Once I've stuck the strips of masking tape onto the metal I trim the bits that hang over the edge. Then the strip of copper is put through the rolling mill. You don't need too much pressure to get a good result.

I remove the strips of masking tape either with the tweezers or if I'm in a hurry I use my torch to burn it off.

This is the result - cool stripes!

I used leaf skeletons with the rolling mill for the leaf vein texture on the other two bangles.

The next step is to trim the copper strips to size and file a straight edge on either end ready for soldering.

I always flux my joins and dry the flux before adding the solder {which I also dip in flux} before I start to solder. The solder doesn't jump around as much that way as you start to heat the metal.

Once I've rounded the bangle and tidied up the solder join I put sandpaper on top of my steel block and sand the edges of the bangle to get them straight.