The Lucey Custom Copper Sheet Metal Chimney Cap Fabrication Photo and Description Page

Portland Oregon (2/05)

Updated 4-14-2010

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The detailed custom fabrication of a 19" wide x 49" long copper chimney cap (2-05)

Here is what we made and installed with the design and some installation help from the client: Steve Lucey at 2895 N. W. Raleigh here in Portland Oregon 97210. It was designed to cover this chimney and the gas exhaust flue you see on the left.

It took about 50 square feet of copper including the screening around the vent area.  This chimney cap weighed in at 58lb.  Even though it has very few visible rivets it is the sturdiest chimney cap we had ever made.  It is also the most seamless chimney cap we had made to go over a brick chimney shown above left.  To the right is the copper chimney cap after installation. This chimney cap sits down to cover the top 2 courses of bricks. Here it is just a couple years later while I was in the area bidding on some copper gutters for a neighbor across the street in mid 2007.

It is attached to this brick chimney with 4 stainless steel screws near the bottom edge. It took 3 days just to build this small chimney cap in our shop. The final cost was $950 installed.

Including the end caps for the hood, there are 6 cross-braces to support the roof of this chimney cap. See below for the 34 other photos of this fabrication.

This shows the roof and three sides of the base formed, but not folded. 

The hood is only 19" wide, but took a 34" wide x 49.25" long sheet of copper to make it.  I had to remove one of the 5 braces out of my metal bender to form this large hood just right and this seamless.

The lower section design has been drawn out on the copper on both the film side and the underside, since there are several bends to be made in both direction.  It is careful work to bend the corners here so they are perfect right angles before riveting them together.  The cuts in the inside of the corners are also tricky to calculate so it will fit together just right.

Our work table is 4' x 8'. The sheet of copper shown come 10' long and 3 feet wide. It still has the clear plastic film over one side that will be used for the outside of this copper chimney cap to protect it from finger prints and scratches, to be pealed off after installation.  The cap angles need to be carefully calculated so there are no errors or unexpected complications. We have to think several steps ahead, like working out the problems of a Rubixs Cube.  If we are in error, we may ruin some very costly copper material.

The hammer is used as a support inside the base frame to help hold it up right, so the angles will be true 90 degrees. It was still plenty wobbly.

The lower body of this cap is one piece on 3 sides as seen here.  It is only 11" high on the flat side wall of it, but that piece of copper was 22.5" wide and nearly 10' long.  We then made the back side and seamed the base together with a pair of 1" overlapping seams over both back corners. It was no longer wobbly. Then we made the spark arrest screened roof support frame area.

This is the assembly of the internal roof frame work over the screened area. We made these 'V' cross supports between the roof frames to hold them steady as we slid on the tight roof cover over them. By making this sturdy internal frame work this way; we will not need to add lots of external rivets that could perhaps leak a tiny bit.

Here is the roof support frame work finished from different angles. Remember that you can click on all the photos you see here to get a better look at that photo.

It was a very tight fit and had to be tapped in place with a 2x4 and hammer.

This shows the under side of the cap. The second photo shows this third section set in place, but not riveted on.  It is really coming together now.

This is showing how we transported it sitting on a foam cushion and bungeed on.

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Below is a photo of our
Better Business Bureau's
NW Business Integrity Award
for the year 1998

1999 Better Business Award

We were also a 1997 finalist for this same award. See our referral web page to see how we managed to be honored with this special award

 

 

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