Fuming A Copper Panel for a Custom Door Project

In this episode, I built a large chamber made from wood and plastic to fume a copper panel for a custom front door commission.  I used salt, vinegar, and ammonia as the fuming techniques.

Building a Custom Front Door: Starting With Copper and Chemistry

I’m working on a new commission that came in recently, a custom front door for a Denver Metro client. It’s one of the more involved projects I’ve taken on, and I want to walk through how it’s coming together.

The door is going into an existing frame, so I don’t need to build the frame from scratch. I’m fitting the door to what’s already there. The main structure will be wood. The frame, the curve, and the dividers will be painted black, and the body of the door will be walnut. The centerpiece is a curved panel made from copper, which I will get from Atlas, a local Denver based Metal supplier.

The client has a specific look in mind for that copper. She doesn’t want the standard warm tones you typically see. She wants deep, rich color — blacks, browns, and strong blues that really stand out. To get there, I’m using a patination process inside a fume chamber.

Building the Fume Chamber

Before I could do anything with the copper, I needed a chamber large enough to hold the full sheet. I built it out of knotty alder, which is inexpensive and easy to work with. I ripped it down into strips, assembled a basic frame, and wrapped it in plastic sheeting. I stapled the plastic down tightly so it wouldn’t sag and make contact with the copper inside. The top hinges up to give access. It’s a straightforward build, and I figured out some of the details as I went.

Cutting and Prepping the Copper

For the curved panel, I exported my design from SketchUp into Adobe Illustrator and printed a full-scale template. I glued the template to plywood, cut out the shape, and used it as a pattern to route the copper to the right profile.

After cutting, I sanded both sides with 1200-grit. One side gets abraded, so the patina has something to grip. The other gets sanded smooth so the adhesive will bond properly when it’s installed.

The Patination Process

I want to be upfront that some of this involves strong chemicals, and I’m working with a full respirator and chemical-resistant goggles. The goggles fogged up during filming, so the footage from this part isn’t as sharp as I’d like.

I started by wiping the copper down with muriatic acid. Even after sanding, this step helps the patina etch deeper into the metal, which gives the color more permanence.

From there, I applied a solution that adds some base color — browns and blacks — before moving on to the blue. I’m not going to detail exactly what that mixture is, because it produces noxious gas, and I don’t want anyone recreating it without knowing the risks. I’ll link to a book that covers this material thoroughly for anyone who wants to research it properly.

For the blue, the process is well-documented and not particularly complicated. I wet the copper with vinegar, sprinkled salt where I wanted the blue to develop, and poured ammonia into cups inside the sealed fume chamber. The ammonia fumes do the work. About an hour gives you a light blue. The longer it sits, the deeper and more saturated the color gets. Once it’s done, you rinse off the excess salt.

The color at this stage is fragile. If you touch it, it rubs right off. So I pulled out the ammonia cups and let the copper dry for a couple of hours before rinsing. Most of the loose blue washes away with the salt, but the pattern it leaves in the metal is what makes it worth doing.

What’s Next

I’ll let the copper fully dry and then move on to building the actual door — the walnut frame and structure that these panels will sit in. That’s where the woodworking really starts.

If you want to order a custom door or learn how to build one, let me know. I can help.

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