pairoducks: Copper and Glass Exterior Sconces

I spent the last two weekends working with master armorer Travis Conn on two exterior lights. I wanted to share the process.

First I bought some exterior LED flood lights. 2 lights and fixtures were 50 bucks from Stusser electrical supply.

Travis and I met and sketched designs, then made a model out of cardboard. The form making for metal work is the most crucial and important part of the process because it's easy to cut and play with cardboard. I made sure my model would fit over the flood light.

Using a Beverly B-1 throatless shear we cut out all of our components.

Next we used this simple break to bend our angles.

With our pieces cut, I used a pull saw to make a simple bench pin.

Rubber cement was used to glue down a template to the sheet copper that I cut out with a frame saw. A really great trick that travis taught me is to laminate the sheet metal pieces together using rubber cement. Then you make your cuts and pry them apart. You get all your cuts with one pass with the jeweler's frame saw.

Here is an image of the frame saw and bench pin...

We used stainless machine screws and wing nuts to mock up the lights, dry fit and make final adjustments.

A riveting activity...

Not a lot of great photos of the forming of the cap. I used a piece of black locust to cut and form a stake then used a rasp to form the contour of our bend. Then using a plastic hammers and the wood stake we hammered and bent the radius into the sheet metal to form this nun's hood. There was minimal annealing at the point of the cap to smooth out deformations.

Mocking it up...

I wanted to engrave swallows on the front of the lights, so i sketched designs and once again rubber cemented the template to copper and used a jeweler's saw to cut out the birdies.

With Bill Dawson's aid I was able to use his studio and engraving tools to work on my swallows. I started by following the lines of the template with this awl and tiny hammer. The pin prick marks gave me the pattern for engraving.

An engraving block...

Mostly I just used a square graver, a threader and this leather sand bag to cut my simple design lines.

Then I watched the lunar eclipse...

I went downtown and with the help of Bill Hillman from Mansion Glass I got my glass panes cut to my design templates. Another amazing craftsman and person.