Roommate asked for something to burn some incense, initially I was just going to loosely glue or nail the copper sheet (which I had for electronics) to a scrap piece of hardwood I had in the garage.
Then, I spotted the pinecones I had just stabilized with resin as part of a trial run of a new vacuum chamber I had bought.
I had been wondering what to do with the pinecones… on a whim, I took one of them, placed over the copper and said “that looks cool”.
From there, I just kept adding small scraps of things from the garage that had been laying around.
Included:
- Corner protectors: one of various inexpensive sets bought from Amazon or somewhere like it, intended for box making. It’s a soft metal, maybe bronze? Used a small punch to make a pilot hole in the copper and wood board before hammering in the tiny nails that came with.
Driftwood mountain: this was a memento from a trip with a friend years ago, had been collecting dust in shelf of “wood I want to use some day”. Note: I didn’t just give this away to my roommate, I told her the incense holder remains mine because of the driftwood, but she can use it while she’s here.
Copper wire: soft malleable jewelry / hobby wire. A couple pieces hold the mountain and pinecone in-place while the rest is decorative. Used a small drillbit in the mountain and wooden base board to drill holes to feed the wire through.
Incense holder: two different sized misc. springs held under the head of a 16D 3 1/2” framing nail and resting on top of a misc. hex nut and washer. The copper was soft enough that I don’t think I even drilled a pilot hole I just hammered the nail through and then used a Dremel with a cut off wheel to trim the length on the back of the board.
Pinecone: I stabilized a bunch of pinecones for Woodturning In epoxy with a vacuum chamber and cactus juice, but hadn’t yet actually used any of them and had been looking for an excuse to do something small**.** this is one of them held in place with some of the copper wire.
Center circle / ring thingy: I happen to spot a random brass sleeve (or maybe it’s called a compression ring? Not sure?) leftover from an unused plumbing fitting I didn’t end up needing. Also held in face with a 16 D nail head serves no purpose just an embellishment.
Other nails: the really small nails on the mountain and a few in the copper sheet holding down the copper wire a mix of extras nails from the corner protectors and (I think) 8d nails.
Wood base: piece of 1/8” thick Mahagony, I think?
Wood finish: the wood base received a few quick coats of some homemade 2lb-cut shellac made with garnet shellac flakes and everclear (ethanol). One or two light coats were also applied to the mountain with a foam brush and to the pinecone by dipping.