My neighbor is a pretty sick metal smith.... He is getting up in age and not as agile as he once was... He has started making things out of copper... I may approach him about building hot rod parts out of copper, like air cleaners, velocity stacks and various other parts... Do you think this is a good idea? and if so, what should he make?
I love the look of copper, I think the worst part would be battling the oxidation... (statue of liberty) Otherwise I have a bunch of copper stashed away for my next build if I can work it in tastefully. Copper rivets are amazing looking if you get the spacing perfect. I love a good row of rivets, and copper ones pop really well. Not too sure about an aircleaner made of just copper. maybe steel, then copper plate it???
I love copper, I used it for my dash panel and fuel lines. Copper velocity stacks,water pipes for flatheads, dash stuff, and pitman bonnets are just a couple of ideas for products you guys can make.
That watch is cool! I have copper underhood on the '50 Burb, small accents here and there. And a copper fire extinguisher doubling as a coolant overflow.
I knew an old timer that made copper patch panels for his car. easy to shape,soldered on, made from copper scraps out of my stash.I had a cover on a diesel he made for me until the paint got scratched. think it started as a pot lid.
If you're interested in copper nows a good time to buy. The prices have dropped down back to reasonable levels from where they were astronomical last year. Get 'er while its cheap! We get sheet copper at work. I think a copper firewall would look badass! I love the look of those copper fuel lines!
Thanks for the input. Maybe this will help him keep goin. Right now he fabs custom duct work for construction jobs, but he's gettin up there and can't be goin up on scaffolding. Hopefully he can fab some things and start hittin swap meets
The Stingray in my avatar has a copper plated frame and part of the chain guard. It was clearcoated with a spray can about 10 years ago and still looks pretty good. The pic was taken about 3 years ago after a nice detail. The '68 frame I started with was actually originally painted coppertone by Schwinn. Copper does take nickel/chrome very nicely; copper/nickel/chrome is the standard M/O for custom replating.
One thing about plating copper...copper is pretty soft, so if the part can flex or get bent up, will the plating be likely to peel?
Not a problem with copper. Copper is very soft and malleable, moreso than steel in my experiance, and that is a good thing. As long as there is proper adhesion, which is relativley easy to get with copper over steel, the copper plating will stick even with hammer abuse. I have taken dents out of freshly copper plated steel parts, then polished out the straightening marks and proceeded to polish/buff the copper back to a mirror. However, with copper over aluminum it is a little different, at least how I plate aluminum it is. In order to get reliably good adhesion over aluminum, I put a thin copper strike over the raw aluminum, then a meduim thickness nickle over that, then restrike in copper, then apply thick acid copper. The nickel layer is not very malleable and can crack if the base metal is bent too far, but shouldn't peel. If you are dealing with copper plated aluminum , I doubt cracking would be an issue, but unlike steel, I would'nt try to modify the part after plating. The nickel will bend, but only so far.
Sorry, yeah you're right, a rigid nickle/chrome over a copper base metal will crack if bent too far. But the plating will also stiffen/strengthen the part. It really depends upon the specific part in question. It would be the same problem if a steel part were made too thin and bent, therefore cracking plating.
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