Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Copper leaves




Just before I sent them to be nickel plated.
These life sized leaves take a little more than an hour each to make, and it cost a hundred bucks to have them nickel plated. This is about half of them. In other words, about 1200 dollars worth of leaves. So far.
The copper is actually NOT copper, it is aluminum with a copper coating. I was really nervous about having all my work being rendered useless in the acid baths, but they came out okay. They look like leaves in that pic, and now they look like leaves which have been chrome plated.

Maple leaves, oak leaves and laurel leaves. And I think dandelion leaves.

Hope he likes the results. He is paying me in gift certificates to his restaurant. And it is a VERY nice restaurant! And he is getting a VERY nice mirror!


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2 comments:

Kate said...

They're beautiful! I'm all for that kind of bartering. That's going to be one expensive mirror, though did at first wonder whether you were making a laurel crown for someone.

STAG said...

If you think of it as jewelry, it is cheap. If you think of it as furniture, it is expensive. If you think of it as clothing (not so much my leaves as my armour..grin!) than it is expensive. If you think of my armour as something which can keep you alive in a dangerous environment, it is cheap.
Its all in how you look at it.

It also depends upon whether you look at it as a hobby or a business. A hobby is "supposed" to take a bunch of time. A business is supposed to minimize that time.

Barter allows the customer to use his own economies to purchase something outside of his normal competence.