[Jewelry making - Article 01026] - [Orchid] Making copper grapes

[Michael Honeycutt]

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    I know, it sounds silly. I recently participated in the building of
    an outdoor fountain that is designed to resemble a grapevine. I'd
    never closely studied a grape leaf before and found it quite helpful
    to photocopy,in color for better detail, two sizes of grape leaves
    fresh from a vine for patterns. This worked very well and 67.5 hours
    later I had some very convincing copper grape leaves for the vine
    fountain. But what is more convincing for a grape vine than actual
    grapes? Well this is where I/we ran into problems. One of my
    partners (three of us in all) in the venture decided that our best
    course of action was to go buy some cheapo plastic grapes and hang
    them from the vine. They look like grapes alright but, being an
    outdoor fountain, they will eventually discolor and rot in our high
    altitude desert New Mexico sunshine. That thin air, High UV light
    doesn't mix well with cheapo plastic and especially reddish purple
    pigments. Those colors bleach out amazingly well in sunlight. I want
    to make realistic looking copper grapes that I can oxidize for
    color. Here's my own problem... I've thought of dapping out a bunch
    of half spheres, soldering like a madman, and winding up with round
    grapes. In reality grapes are rarely spherical and this won't look
    real enough. I thought about using glass grapes but those that I
    found were basically round marbles that didn't look real enough to
    me. My leaves look very much like the real thing and I'd like for
    the graspes to look fairly real too. I need to find a way to shape
    these things into the oblong wonders that real grapes are, and I
    need to be able to do so in volume with repeatable accuracy in 2-3
    different sizes. I had considered casting some grapes but the end
    result will be far too heavy for the vines to support. I would
    really appreciate any ideas you fine people might be able to give
    me. So far everything has been produced at the life sized scale. I
    have yet to figure out how to actually fix them into a cluster too
    but, first, I need the grapes. There isn't a major time constraint
    here but, if we ever want to sell this thing, it needs to be right.
    Maybe my perfection oriented artist is showing here but I think that
    a serious attempt at realism shouldn't be diluted with second rate
    fixes ( like plastic grapes). If you can help please do so. I trust
    you folks more than most because you know the reality of trying to
    make metal behave and obey. 

Thanks in advance.
Mike

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