Making a Copper Bowl or Ash Tray

To make this bowl you will need:

•        One piece of copper sheet approximately 10 cm x 10 cm and 22 gauge or 20 gauge thick. Buy copper which is soft or 'annealled'. 

•        A sandbag and a pear shaped wooden mallet or domed head hammer.

•        Some punches for decoration.

•        Files and emery paper.

•        A soldering iron and solder if you want to attach legs.

The following steps will get you there:

1. With a compass, draw the largest possible circle onto the sheet of copper.

2. Cut out the circle using tinsnips. If you have, any sharp edges file them smooth.

3. Place the copper sheet onto a sandbag. If you have no sandbag

you can make one from a hessian or cloth bag with dry sand in it.

4. With a pear-shaped mallet or a dome head hammer, begin to

beat the copper disc in the centre. Hold onto the edge of the disc and turn it round while you beat it. Keep doing this until a bowl is formed.

5. To remove the waves and bumps place your bowl onto a hard wooden bench and `planish it by beating it all over with the mallet to smooth out the bumps. Sometimes a `dome stake' is used. Put the stake in the bench vyce and use a flat wooden or metal hammer on the outside of your bowl. This is harder to do. You need to move the bowl around on the stake and hit only where the bowl and stake are touching.

6. By now your bowl should be dished up and smooth. If you would like decoration marks in your bowl then now is the time to punch them in. Use different punches and plan your design with pencil or felt pen before you begin.

7. If the punching pushes your bowl out of shape, smooth it out again with the mallet.

8. Now file the edges smooth and make sure the bowl is round. Emery paper will make

edges even smoother and pleasant to handle.

9. Polish the finished bowl with steel wool and soap, or one of the metal polishes available at the hardware store.

10. If you want feet for the bowl, these can be made from twists of copper or brass wire, or pieces of copper or brass tube.

11. Solder the feet on with lead-tin solder and a soldering iron. You will also need some flux to make the solder flow and adhere properly.

12. Wash all the flux off with water and polish the bowl as before. Copper bowls can be made in many shapes. Once you have made a round one, try an oval, or pear shape, or triangle or square.