This piece was kinda fun. A family hired me to build this map for them. They spelled out several parameters I had to work in. The finished piece was going to be mounted on a light-colored stone wall over a fireplace. This gave me my size limits. It also helped define the colors that would be used since it needed to contrast with the stone color. They also wanted to use copper to tie in with their decor.
To begin, I cut an oversized blank out of 16-ounce copper on my CNC Router. I also used the router to cut two negative templates out of MDF board. After annealing the copper, I pinched it between the templates and hammered out the shape of the island and the mountains.
I used the CNC again to cut a 3/16"-thick Aluminum Backer Plate with two keyhole mounting slots. After the copper was hammered out, I laid it over this aluminum backer and hammered the edges of the copper down and around it. This gave the piece stability and ridgidty as well as providing an easy mounting method. I filled the empty space between the aluminum and the copper with urethane foam.
One of the trickiest parts was getting the patinas right. I used different chemicals to achieve blue, green, brown and black colors. I also used heat to bring out some iridescent colors and burnished the copper to show the natural color. Getting everything to work together required multiple steps of oxidizing, masking, spraying protective finishes, taking off the mask, acid washing the unprotected areas, then running through the whole process again for each color.
The final step was to add the lettering. The family only wanted a few spots that had sentimental value designated. I hand-lettered these using one of my favorite fonts - one that gives the feel of an old Spanish map.
All-in-all I think it really came out well. I would like to do more maps someday!
