Make an Egg-xtraordinary Copper Wire & Faux Granite Egg

I like to work with copper wire the last months and now that Easter is near i wanted to make a related project.

And what says more Eastern than a nice Egg?

For more information on this project make sure you watch the Video that goes along with this build: HERE

Things i used:

• Soldering Iron
• Solder and Solder Flux
• Tweezers,wire snips, and round nose pliers
• Copper wire (the thickness is not important)
• Spray Lacquer
• Template Egg (preferably one that doesn't melt)

Step 1: Making / Buying a Template

I bought a styrofoam egg to use as a template to shape and solder the wires on it but i forgot that it doesn't really work with the heat from the soldering iron.

So i decided to turn an egg on the lathe. if you don't have a lathe search for wooden eggs in your area and don't forget that google may can help you.

Step 2: Having Some Fun With the Template

Because i made this wood egg just for a template and it's not important how this piece is looking and i was pretty sure that it would get some solder , flux on it and probably some burn marks from the soldering iron.

I wanted to try an old traditional Japanese wood preserving technique that is called Shou Sugi Ban, so let's go for it with a torch. I've rotated the egg slowly by hand and moved the torch. Make sure you cleaned your surrounding from shavings and wood dust.

After i reached the look of it i coated the egg with some matte spray lacquer to prevent the charring .

Step 3: Bending and Soldering

i took some leftover Copper wire that was used for electrical wiring in my house and stripped the insulation from it.

Then i cut it to random length so that its easier to mend and form, and it helps also to make the shapes more random.

use a round nose pliers or some snap-ring pliers to prevent the wire from any damage,make sure you don't squeeze it to hard. Make them any size or shape!

Now that you have a couple wires bent glue the top piece on with a drop of super or hot glue to ensure that the copper don't moves and that way you can solder it much easier.

Apply some Flux to get stronger and cleaner joints, I used pretty thin silver solder because that's what i had on hand.

!!!!Be careful to hold the bent wire with some tweezers because they get HOT!!!!!!

Step 4: Making the Bottom

If you want to leave the Template inside the Shell you can skip this step!

After you soldered the top part of the egg down to the widest part make sure you afterwards can remove the outer shell.

Turn the egg upside down and repeat the Previous step but make sure you don't solder the bottom and top half together so that you still can take of the two parts. It helps if you make the meeting pieces different so you can put them together one way!

Step 5: Finishing!

After you soldered the wire "cage" together clean it from the flux, fingerprints or any residue so you can apply a finish coat of Spray lacquer. That is needed if you want to preserve it from any corrosion also known as patina.

As i said earlier the template got pretty ugly from all the solder, flux and the lacquer was also damaged i cleaned it with a wire brush to remove the charred surface. and i applied a coat of Faux Granite spray paint.

I hope you got something out of this project or even got inspired to make something similar! If so please share it with me on any social media!!!

You can find all my Info on my website at ollaris.tv

And here you can find the Video to this Project: HERE