#Miracle grow to patina copper cracked
#Miracle grow to patina copper Patch

The copper needle is much heavier than the bone needle, although they have nearly identical dimensions. I finished it with a quick dip in a cup of hot tea to give it a bit of a warmer antiqued look than stark white bone.īird Bone needle with sinew thread, 7.2cm x 0.3cm x 0.1cm

#Miracle grow to patina copper Patch

I left a little more bone above the eye of the needle, because the bird bone is not as strong as the copper and the extra material will help keep the needle from splitting. Miracle-Gro All Purpose Soluble Plant Food Miracle Gro Patch Magic Miracle-Gro. Mind you, the important thing in order not to 'mess up' the patina (since it is often powdery and fragile) is to use a soft quality brush. This gave me a 1mm thick needle blank, which I ground into its final shape on the wet wheel and a bit of sandpaper.

#Miracle grow to patina copper cracked

I made it much the same as the copper needle, except I cracked it out of a hollow bird bone, rather than hammer it out of a copper wire. The client also requested a bone needle of similar dimensions. The recipe I use is outlined in this blog post: Patinating Copper Experiments. Its all done, except for the antiquing, which I apply by letting it sit in an evaporating bowl of red wine vinegar saturated with Miracle Gro.

You could certainly bend it if you tried, but its much stronger than it looks. The hammering hardens the copper and despite its small dimensions, it is surprisingly stiff. I used a rotary tool to drill the hole while the needle was still a little thicker than it needed to be, so that I'd have room to correct any errors in the eye's shape or placement.Īntiquing bones in tea and copper in miracle gro and vinegarĮventually I ground the needle down to the final dimensions. I tapped it with the hammer from time to time, partly to help thin out thick spots, but also to keep it from becoming too smooth and regular. I used the wet grinding wheel to slowly grind it down to the correct size. I started cold hammering a section of wire about 1 inch long (slightly shorter than the one in the photo) and that gave me a blank the correct length, but about twice as thick and wide as I needed it to be.

The finished needle needed to be 7.2 cm long, 3 mm wide and 1 mm thick. To make the copper needle, I started with a short section of heavy copper ground wire - the same stuff that I use when I make copper tipped pressure flakers.