Transcription
Okay, so I wanted to make a video about, um, how I did the corrosion on the copper here. I had several people reach out to me and they're interested in how I did it and my technique and whatnot. So I just wanted to make a quick video and, uh, show the steps, um, and what chemicals I used, what tools I used, how I set it up to get these results. And I'll be using one of these. It's a .05 thickness of copper. It's a 5x7 piece. I'll etch it and then go through the, um, go through the process. And I'll also show not just how they do the corrosion and and how I got the the really thick patina, but also I'll show you how I did the, uh, uh, you know, the torching to get some of these really cool colors, uh, on the on the copper. So stay tuned and we'll get to it.
Okay, so first, what I did to get everything ready, I needed some place to put the copper for it to get the ammonia and the vinegar and the salt and all that crap going. So I went and got, um, just one of these little containers from from Walmart. It was a little over a dollar. And then I just drilled holes, um, along the that line right there. And they just kept it in the same line so they're even. And then I took these skewers. These are like, I don't know, 12-inch skewers or 14, I don't know, barbecue skewers and threaded those through the holes. Now I have some place where I can set the copper piece while the at the bottom is a pool of ammonia. And here in a second, I'll actually do a piece of copper.
Okay, so you can see what it is and then I'll time it out, uh, you know, show you how it looks after five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. The pieces that, uh, you saw earlier at the beginning of this video, they, uh, I let them set for two or three hours and then pull them out and let them dry overnight. So let's get into that and I'll show you the, uh, the ammonia and salt mixture as well.
Okay, so we have a container here with some salt. It's probably a tablespoon or two salt and it's really fine. It's fine granulated salt. I know some people use the the chunky, um, the big chunk salt, but I I use the they're really fine and it seemed to seem to work. So I got a container. It's, you know, maybe a cup, cup and a half or two cups, something like that. I don't know. And then put some some salt at the bottom and got just regular cleaning vinegar, uh, that I'm gonna pour into this and make a solution. So here we go with that. So that's about it, um, inside.
Okay, so we have the salt and vinegar solution. You can see, you'll see it's not going to dissolve completely, which is fine. And you'll see why just as I, piece of leather in there, whatever. Um, so so you'll see here in a little bit as I when I put it on there that it doesn't really matter if it's fully dissolved. It actually will will help a little bit.
Okay, so for the copper, um, I have just a five by seven piece of copper and I've gone ahead and and etched it a little bit so I can give us this thing to some something to hold on to and provide some some interesting some interesting texture and looks to it. Um, yeah, sorry about the leather stuff. I also did leather work. Um, so the not sure which way we're gonna do this up, but I'm gonna do half of this, like probably the bottom half or the top half with the the corrosion mixture so you can see how that goes. And then I'll torch the other half, um, so you can kind of see how that goes.
Okay, so hold on a second. Okay, so we can take some of this here. This, I'm just going to dab it on this bottom half and we'll check it here in a little bit. You know, make it random, you know, splotch it in there, just throw it on there. And you can use, I'm using a foam brush, but if you wanted to use like a paintbrush and and like paint it on nicely, you could. But I want to get some some randomness going on, right? So that's why I just kind of I'll just flick it on there a little bit here and there. And then when we come back, we start checking this out, you'll see how it's going to look.
So let's, uh, take this. I'm going to put on the the rack over here first. So just have it sitting in the rack. There's that half. And now let me get the, uh, the ammonia.
Okay, so again, this is just the simple ammonia that I got from the supermarket. And we're gonna put in the bottom of this container. It's it's already smelling pretty strong. So, um, I'm gonna stick it here. Turn that off. Um, we're just gonna pour in the bottom of this, maybe, well, maybe a third of a cup, half cup in the bottom there. And it's also important that wherever you're going to leave this, make sure it's level, that the the container is level, uh, because otherwise all of your mixture will start running off one way or the other, um, and then pooling, and you don't want that. So I'm gonna go ahead, take the the container on and we're gonna check back in five minutes and then 10 minutes and 15. So you can start to see what's going on. All right.
Okay, it's been five minutes. See how it's looking? Just really quick. Yeah, already started. Looks like it's doing okay. Some really cool colors. Look at that blue, purple, cool. Okay, I'll take another another five minutes.
Okay, here's 10 minutes later. Yeah, those colors, beautiful. It's really starting to to get in there, corrode that a little bit. All right, cool. We'll, uh, come back in five minutes.
Okay, 15 minutes. Okay, 15 minutes. Let's see how it looks. And also, while we look at this, to remind you, to you should probably make sure this is in a well-ventilated area because these fumes get pretty powerful. Yeah, those blues look great. Yeah, fumes are getting strong. Some deep purples. All of this will turn the teal color like you saw earlier, so don't worry about that. Um, but at this point, you you'll know how much corrosion. I mean, I put a whole dollop of water of that the salt and vinegar. So I mean, if you wanted to just wipe it on with a brush and after 15 minutes, this is what's going to look like. And so you could actually take it out and let it dry at that point, uh, if you want, you know, the deeper corrosion, you have thicker, gnarlier stuff. Um, you or I'm going to leave it a little bit longer, of course, just so you can see what it's like. But so this is after 15 minutes and, uh, yeah, strong fumes.
Okay, so I'm going to wait another 15 minutes. So we'll check back and it'll be 30 minutes after we started. Uh, so you can see what 30 minutes looks like. Okay.
Okay, so this is, uh, 30 minutes. Take a look at the corrosion after 30 minutes from when we started. So 30 minutes total. Damn, look at that color. It's just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Love that. That is really cool. You can see some of the where it started to dry and some of the etching parts where it's etched. I'm starting to get some of that teal color. So yeah, starting from that this big pool of salt and vinegar is starting to starting to pick up some of that corrosion and and the ammonia is doing its work. So again, if you wanted to stop it now and let it dry out, um, you could. It wouldn't have that, you know, the big crusty, um, corrosion like likes it like you saw at the beginning, but, you know, you'd still have a have some really decent decent colors going on. So and again, I remind you, uh, make sure you have proper ventilation because the ammonia is really strong.
Okay, so now I'm going to wait another 30 minutes. And so it'll be a total of one hour. Um, next time we check in and just, well, for you guys to be just a few seconds, but yeah, I'm gonna let it set for, uh, another half an hour. So it'll be a total of one hour and we'll see how it looks. All right.
Okay, it's been one hour total since we began, not since from the half an hour. So this is one hour total since the very beginning. We first put it in the container. Let's see what this looks like. Wow, look at that. That color, that is awesome. You can see the reflection of everything in there. To like, try to focus on our thing. Yeah, so yeah, now it started to dry out a little more. It's oozing into that etching there. Yeah, nice.
Okay, so I'm going to leave this for at least another hour. And I'll be back in an hour to see how it is. And depending on how this looks, sometimes I will I'll take the, uh, I'll grab the, uh, I'll take a little bit more of the salt and vinegar and just kind of splash it all all along here just to get the right effect and the right coverage because, you know, if it doesn't go to the edge. Actually, let's do that right now. So I'm gonna actually just stir this up a little bit. So I'll get a little bit of salt and a little bit of beginner on the brush. Tap it out a little bit and make sure I don't get too much on my brush here. So I'm just going to pull and pull this over just to the edge. See that? Should pull that to the edge a little bit because I want all coverage all the way to the end as much as I can anyway. Sometimes just pull all the way. So there we go. That's good. Yeah. Okay, so brush to the side there and, uh, we'll check back in in another hour. So it'll be by that time we'll be two hours total what we've done. Okay. All right. Let's see a minute.
Okay, so it's been a total of two hours. We'll take a look at it and probably take it out to dry overnight. But let's, uh, let's take a seat real quick. Let's see what it looks like. Nice. Wow, starting to dry off a little bit. Get some of the corrosion going on. Okay, let me pause it real quick and, uh, I'm going to to grab some, uh, some put a glove on. That's one of the gloves that, you know, so that you don't get the chemicals on your hands. So let me pause real quick and then I can take that out and set it out to dry.
Okay, so here we go. I can grab this. Get close as I can. I don't want to mess with it too much. Okay, yeah, it's gonna spill a little bit. I think that's okay. So let's put it on some some, uh, carton here and we're gonna let that dry overnight. It's going to be a really nice color in that. And then we'll go up and we'll torch the top. You can see how that goes. All right, I'll be back tomorrow and we'll continue this video. So here it is. It's been drying for a couple hours. Get some nice blues in there. Looking great.
Okay, so, uh, we'll check back in, uh, probably tomorrow morning, uh, so it dries overnight and see how it looks. Cool.
Okay, so this is the next morning. You see how it's dried, nice and nice and all the same color. Let's, um, take it over to the workbench and, uh, play with a little bit here and see see how it is. [Applause] So yeah, might be a little wet just over there, but yeah, this is nice and nice and dried. I'll just put a little bit of pressure on here and see if I can kick up a little bit of the corrosion. I think that works too. Scraping a little bit of that back gives it a nice little some interesting characteristics. So it's not just all this just one color blue or the what's there. So if you want to just rub your finger across it a little bit, um, see if you can scrape up just a little bit. You might give you some some cool results.
Okay, cool. So I'm going to get the torch, um, and we're going to torch that top part and you're going to see how that works.
Okay, so now we're going to do the last part where I'm going to torch the top here. Get some really interesting color. I wanted to see the process of kind of how that works. So I'm gonna turn on. This is just a butane or propane, the little [Music] top. Start seeing it. So right now, it's just cleaning it up a little bit. Now, see if I start torching the blue, uh, it'll start turning almost like a green color. But what I want to focus on is here's the top. Let me start getting this top to really start darkening here. Okay, that final color come through. Yeah, look at that. That's crazy, beautiful. Wow.
Okay, so that's the piece. Um, I'm going to let it cool and then I'll put some resin on it and we'll see how the whole thing turns out. Right. Okay. And there you have it. The finished piece after, uh, putting on a layer of resin, letting it dry. So you have some nice, nice movement from the etchings in the on the copper itself. Some nice depth you get in here. Any cases of that beautiful color and texture from the ammonia and salt and vinegar. It's a great color, great texture. You can see some of that darker. All those colors didn't come out go out quite as much as I thought, but some nice deep copper color in there. Yeah, came out really nice. Yeah. So if you want to do it yourself, now you know how. Okay, see you next time.