Metal Petals!

Intro: Metal Petals!

This is a fancy instructable for any sort of lady-getting type thing or holiday relating to women of any sort: Metal Flowers!




(the first picture is a Calla Lily, and the second is a rose)

STEP 1: Materials

-Copper or brass sheet. Thin, but not so thin that it's like sandwich foil. how much you need depends on how large you want your flower to be

-Steel or other metal rod of a decent thickness. Again, i've left this extremely variable for the size of your flower. The stuff I'm using is gonna be using is about 1/4" round barstock.
also for the first flower in this instructable (the small rose) for ease of use we're going to use a standard duplex nail.

-Miscellaneous bits n' pieces.

STEP 2: Tools

-Ballpien hammer. Prefer a ballpien but it's not entirely necessary.
-Vice
-Torch and brick or forge. I have a forge, but a propane torch with a wide head or an oxy acetylene turned on low with a rosebud will do. (this is somewhat optional. If you need to anneal your copper/brass first you will need this. Some stuff you buy comes pre annealed and finished. If your metal is overly stiff you'll want this)

-Sandpaper
-Glue (good idea to have around but not completely necessary)

STEP 3: Now We Begin.

Clip your pieces out of the copper sheet and drill your holes in the middle. Then stack the pieces up and estimate the thickness.

(you can get an idea of what your pieces should look like by looking at a picture of the flower and piecing apart its geometry but i won't get into that)

Take that measurement and add a little to it (for mine i added about a quarter inch) Then weld your nut/washer to the piece of barstock that far from the end.

STEP 4: Optional Step; Annealing

Get your forge and/or torch and brick, some pliers, your metal, and a bucket of water.
Heat up your copper/brass and watch it. When it starts changing colors (don't worry, you'll see it) dunk it in the water with the pliers. If you're using a torch you'll want to get the whole thing hot by drawing the torch around the piece of metal.

It will now be really soft and ready to work.


If your metal is pre annealed you can skip this step.

STEP 5: Stack An' Smash!

Stack your pieces up however you want to arrange them (for some flowers it will matter and others it will not. For the daffodil pictured it does), clamp them in the vice, and then peen it down tight. (and i mean TIGHT. if it jiggles loose you can use glue but i prefer to not have to do so)

STEP 6: Shape the Petals.

Shape your flower petals by bending them up and wrapping them inward with a pair of small needlenose pliers or scrolling pliers. It may help to have a picture handy of the actual flower around to tweak your shape.

STEP 7: Finished!

Now step back and admire your fancy new flower!
If you want to go one step further you can add the actual scent of the flower by putting some drops of the flower's essential extract onto it.

Now the only thing left to do is to give it to your particular lady in mind and enjoy the praise!
:P

Thanks for reading!

Comments

[ladiesman247]

um. some ppl wont really have that thing u use to squish those thingies. metal bits.!!!! so ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[abbabibble2]

what, a hammer?

[metalliferous]

This is a good method for someone's first flowers. Once someone has had some more experience with the metal (and if they can somehow find all the time), they might consider hammering the petals into shape before they place it on the stem. For a comparison of how that looks, I used on the rose I posted in "show, tell, and brag."

[hay_jumper]

It's spelled "peen". You offer up two flowers in the beginning, bit seem to make a different one? You could add an additional instructable on how to weld, and how to make patinas to gain color on your copper flowers. Nice work.

[abbabibble2]

ah crap i knew i forgot to edit something. i'm aware that this isn't my most coherent instructable ever but really i was just showing how to do the basics, not one specific flower. This method can be applied to most flowers you'd want to make, though.

[Goodhart]

You can still edit it.

[abbabibble2]

yeah i will.

[Goodhart]

Takes me back 30 years when I had a small forge..... *sigh*

[LinuxH4x0r]

Nice job! I remember one someone forged some flowers. Cool!

[SWV1787]

I remember doing this with a square of copper to make a budding rose I gave it to a girl I liked at the time and she even held it in her senior photos. if you do a rose drip some rose oil on it to make it smell like the real deal...

[pyro13]

Very neat!!! thats a great idea!