Four foot diameter copper bowl ?????

An English wheel should be able to shape a sheet of metal to any shape.
 
Thanks for all the input. Decided to give it a try myself with the help of a friend. here's our plan. We're going to build a sandbox about 5ft square 6in deep fill with sand. Make a screed 4in x 24in curved to shape. make the female mold in the sand cover it with a piece of canvas and start forming the copper. Made a white oak end to fit on one of the air hammer tools thinking that might take care of some of the initial forming. Once to shape will dimple the bowl with a ballpeen by hand. We're thinking that we heed to keep the copper heated as we're forming. Well thats our plan. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks Roger
 
You don't need a sand box that big, your hammer isn't that large

I would try something about a foot diameter, probably a bit of tree stump dished out

Apart from handling the blank, this isn't actually a very tricky job

Richard
 
You shouldn't need to heat it as you hammer. The copper will work harden so you might need to aneal it part way through. I would start with some .063 3003 aluminum a bit smaller to get a feel for what you are doing. It is a suitable project for a beginner but copper is expensive and 4' is pretty large. Depending on the profile you want (shallow dish or fairly steep sides) the English Wheel somebody suggested would be good as it is almost all stretching. Something like the cap of an argon bottle with a handle welded on makes a cheap dome shaped hammer to get started. You can also turn hammers out of hardwood on your lathe to get the profile you want. Either a shot bag (leather bag full of sand or lead shot) or a stump as suggested are both appropriate tools. The air tool is probably better for the hammer forming route. As always, google is your friend and there are lots of sites dedicated to this stuff.

Brian
 
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