Vinegar VS Liver of Sulfur

Ok, so it has been a long time since I did a write up on Copper VS Steel and I was asked, sort of...lol to do a follow up on it.  Well, instead of doing a follow up, I decided to do another comparison.  But instead of showing you all the steps using Liver of Sulfur, I am going to show you the steps I used using Vinegar and explain the differences I have found.  So, lets get started...

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First of all, I am still learning all of these techniques myself and by far am not a pro at this.  These are things I just like to learn to do on a whim...I cant seem to get enough of this stuff out of my head, I just like to play a lot.  In fact, I tell my friends that when I am ready to retire ( unfortunately I have some time before that happens), I will never be bored.  I have so much STUFF...Im glad my husband loves me...hehehe

Liver of Sulfur - I like to use the liquid type.  Its not terribly expensive, but is messy and smelly and I found you have to order it and you cant just buy it in the stores. You get instant results. You get a black finish.

Vinegar - cheap and smelly and in every grocery store. You have to wait over night or longer to get nice results. You get a nice deeper warm copper color.

Below are images of the steps I took to create these beautiful earrings...well..without the ear wires..I need to make those still.

I dont remember exactly where I learned how to use the Vinegar technique, either I read it somewhere of I was told by somebody to give it a try.  What I did was put a glass bowl inside of a rubber maid bowl.  You do not want to submerge the copper in the vinegar.  The fumes are what patinas the copper. Once I had the bowl set up, I added the vinegar, just enough to fill it up some, you dont need a ton of vinegar.  I put the copper pieces in the glass bowl, sealed it with the lid, or you can probably use saran wrap.

 I waited over night, roughly 12 hrs from the time I put it in the bowl to the time I took them out.

As you can see here, they really aged nicely.  I was not so smart and didnt take any pictures before I put them in, so unfortunately I cant show you what they looked like before, but they were just plain hammered copper rings all nice and shiny!

 Next, I took a hard sanding block, using the fine side and started to sand the rings.

Dont look at my poorly manicured thumb..I am way overdue for a manicure, like maybe 15 years...LOL

 This is a nice shot of a comparison of the rings before and after.  The one on the left is before I sanded it, and the one on the right is nicely sanded and you can see the texture of the hammering.

This is the final piece.  I am going to put a nice pretty glossy spray sealer on them and they will be ready to wear!  Well..once I get the ear wires made...Hehehe...

I hope you enjoyed this little blurp of mine and dont forget to leave any comments, good bad or other...

Thank you for stopping by and I hope to get a few more little blurps out before the end of the year...

Enjoy your summer..

Chris

UPDATE:  I just did the same treatment to some other pieces of copper and found that if you leave it in long enough, the vinegar starts to sweat leaving a small amount of liquid onto the pieces.  After checking them out a few hours later, they started turning green...I love it!  I will show you a picture soon to how the pieces turned out!

Steel wire V.S. oxidized Copper

I love black wire, and have been interested in how to make my wire change colors with oxidizing.  For a long time I could only find nasty steel wire, and great copper wire.  But copper wire of coarse is not black.  The bead stores here only carry the real shiny black wire and its not quite the look I have been looking for.

Recently I went to OSH and found this really nice black steel wire in 2 different sizes.  It worked great to do some wire wrapping but it left my hand black...nasty smelling too!  So I used Allergy Jewelry Shield to seal the wire.  I am sure there are other types of sealers I could use but it was handy and it worked.  I like the look of the wire, its not too shiny and the black does not rub off now.

Now, I finally got my Liver of Sulfur and played with it a little today to see what it does.  I have done lots of hunting on line to learn about this product.  I do agree that it stinks but it works...  I tried eggs and I wasnt impressed. I took a picture of both items to show you the difference.  I have not put on any of the Jewelry Sheild yet on the oxidized copper so it is dull.  I like both wires.  Copper is easy to find, and now for me steel is too.  Both are fairly easy to work with, and you really should seal both wires once you get the affect you want.

I still need...notice I used the word NEED...LOL...to explore more with oxidizing copper.

As you can see here, they look quite similar.  I think the oxidized copper is a better look myself, and copper is more user friendly.  You can solder it, where as steel you can not.  So it all depends on what your goal is.  For just doing wire wrapping, it may be cheaper and easier to use the steel wire.  But to be more creative, go with the copper and deal with the stink of the Liver of Sulfur.  I dont think it was all that bad.  Less smelly than resin...hehehehe...I hope you like this comparison and let me know if it helps you any at all....