Copper Hairpins

For hairpins, I envisioned a leaf shape with a stem attached as the pin to hold it in place. I wanted an organic shape with a copper sheen and an antique feel. Overall, I feel that I have accomplished this goal!

After fold forming a piece of copper, I opened the shape to reveal a leaf like structure. I then measured out wire so they would be the same length. After I cut the wire, I soldered each to a a copper leaf to create a hair pin. I had immense troubles soldering one of the wires because I could not get the wire to lay in direct contact with the leaf. I ended up attempting a solder five times on this particular pin while the other hair pins I was able to melt the solder in one go to fuse the copper together. After soldering, carbon built up quite a bit on the pieces because of the torch that I had to repeatedly use to solder. I then pickled the three structures, which is an acidic mixture that corrodes the top layer of the metal taking the carbon along with it. Once the copper was cleaned, I decided to put a heat patina on the hairpins. A heat patina is when a torch is used on alcohol rubbed metal to create an iridescent sheen on the metal. This gives the copper an antique feel to it. I then sanded the edges of the leaf to reveal some of the copper underneath.

In the end, the hairpins look elegant even though they give me a bit of a struggle.

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