Copperware

A coppersmith, also known as a brazier, is a person who makes artifacts from copper and brass. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.The term redsmith is used for a tinsmith that uses tinsmithing tools and techniques to make copper items.

Anthropologists believe copper to be the first metal used by humans due to its softness and ease to manipulate. In antiquity, copper's durability and resistance to rust or corrosion proved valuable. Copper's relationship with man is thought to date back over six thousand years.

Copper was particularly worked in England, with ores smelted in Wales as early as the 1500s. Copper was found in great quantities in North America, especially Montana, as well as archaic copper mines near Lake Superior, which was recording by a Jesuit missionary in 1659.

Coppersmithing as a trade benefited strongly from the invention of sheet metal rollers. Copper sheet was then available in a much more versatile and easy form for creating copper wares. By the 1700s, coppersmiths lived in the American colonies, but did not have access to much sheet copper due to the Crown's regulation of copper and other goods to the Americas. Sheet metal production was prohibited in the colonies as well before the American Revolution.

Most coppersmiths can create, from a pattern, copper wares from a sheet of tin. They can also repair, clean and re-tin copper cookware interiors. Some coppersmiths will specialize in specific forms or items, such as a particular type of biscuit oven or mug or kettle. In the 1700 and 1800's, coppersmiths typically had a few apprentices in various stages of learning the trade working together.

Apprentices would start learning the trade usually around 8 or 9 years old. Typical duties of a youth in the copper shop would include tasks such as breaking coke or sal ammoniac blocks, scouring copper pieces to prepare them for tinning, and polishing hammers and tools.

These include:-

Notable copper styles in the UK include Newlyn in Cornwall and Keswick in Cumbria. Coppersmith work started waning in the late 1970s and early 1980s and those in the sheetmetal trade began doing the coppersmith's work, the practices used being similar to those in the plumbing trade. Coppermiths in recent years have turned to pipe work, not only in copper but also stainless steel and aluminium, particularly in the aircraft industry. They are one of the few trades that have a mention in the Bible.

...
Wikipedia