My homemade or home-bodged copper flower.
This job started with an old copper kettle and a 2″ diameter piece of mild steel.
This shows the 2″ piece of mild steel sat on the bench and waiting to be turned.
This was faced, one face domed and a 3/8″ hole machined through the mild. Near to the outer edge I machined a narrow groove that would accept the roots of the petals.
A template was cut out for the petals and then 8 off cut out of copper using tin snips. The edges of the copper were cleaned up and any sharp bits removed using a metal file.
The root of the petals had a bent over edge and these edges were forced into the machined groove. Also, in this image on the right you can see the domed and hammered mild steel centre.
A piece of 1mm diameter soft copper wire was hammered into the root of the petal, thus holding each petal securely in place.
The image below shows the copper wire that has been hammered into the space, thus locking the petal in place.
The nest step was to soft solder the petals to the centre.
The flower cooling down after being heated up with a methylated spirit burner, this is a great way to get an object of this size up to a temperature that will flow the soft solder into the joint.
The back of the flower shows the depth of the steel centre and the phosphor bronze bush that is slightly longer.
The thought was that this is going to live in the garden from now on and so a phosphor bronze bush with a steel axle would last between seasons with a small amount of on the axle.
The axle is a piece of 6mm steel that had been plastic coated and was lying around the workshop. I removed the plastic coating from the area where the flower would sit and drilled a hole through the axle either side of the bush, leaving enough space for a washer. A piece of 1.5mm zinc coated wire was then passed through the hole in the axle and secured with a twist.