Upcycling - Part Two

In my last post, I showed you some raw electrical copper and some small ceramic tiles I was planning on upcycling into a new creation.  I wanted to show you my progress.

This is the raw copper I was using from an electrical job I worked on.  It's 12 gauge copper, I determined, so it needed to be annealed before I could do anything with it!

 This is the copper after annealing and hammering.

 This is the copper after adding some texture.  Have to anneal again to make it straight!

 Copper after being annealed, it has a lot of firescale on it.  You can get rid of this easily with pickle.  I use warm pickle, I don't have a pickle pot so I just make a fresh batch each time. Maybe some day I'll get myself a pot just for pickle!

  This is the copper after pickling, then patinating with Liver of Sulphur, and doing a light sand on it to bring out highlights.  Filed the ends to make them smooth.  Then I sealed it with renaissance wax.

 Arranging the tiles.  I found out E6000 glue will not stick to a piece polished with renaissance wax, so I had to sand the area where the tiles were going to go.

 Making sure I like the placement of the tiles.

 These tiles are finally glued on.  I now have to decide what type of necklace to make with this pendant.  I really like it as a statement to what you can do with "spare parts" but don't know that I would actually wear something like this - would you?

Susan Kennedy
SueBeads