A contractor in Eastern Washington Named Sean built this gazebo for a client of his.  He contracted with us to build a custom eight sided copper cap out of solid 20oz copper sheet metal for this gazebo with a 5/12 pitch roof.  It was to be 43" wide at the base to cover this decorative protrusion in the center.

He made this special top section that has these designs cut into the sides.  He installed different colored transparent plastic on the inside of the designs to be lit up from this light bulb in the center.

Since he was located so close to us, he planned to drive out here it get it, instead of paying us ship this large cap over to him.

Because of the large size, we needed to make this part in two sections.  One with 5 sides, and the other with the other 3 sides.  This meant there would be two seams to seal instead of only one.

The design called for raised corners, to fit with the style of the green corrugated sheet metal roofing  he used (as shown).

We tried to make it without this hole in the center, but graduating from 1.5" at the outside edge to to 0" rise at the center point was still impossible to do with this large copper cap. This is not something that they design sheet metal bending machines (called a brake) to do.

We went to bend the 3 part section, and found out that we could not bring such a large cap to a good point.  We had to cut the middle out 4" from the center point. The 5 part section then worked out better by cutting the center out before attempting to bend that part.  The part shown here took about 15 square feet of copper sheet metal, not including the cut-off waste.

This is the under side of the cap after we were finished.  Being so large, it was pretty wobbly.  Since it was to have an over hang of 3" from the edge of that decorative protrusion, we installed these 8 corner braces that helped a lot to stabilize it.

Instead of just installing a small cap tightly on the center, we decided to make the center hole into a vent for the heat expelled from the light bulb right under the cap.  There is a cross brace supporting the center cap, and screen in the center hole to keep the pests out.  The cross brace is what I attached the upper cap onto.  The hole is only 8" in diameter.  The small cap is 14.5" wide to give it a good 3" overhang.

Here is the upper cap fastened on the main cap.  It is plenty sturdy. You can lift the whole cap up from just grabbing the center cap.  It took another 3 square feet of copper sheet metal to make this upper cap and cross braces.

It took about 20 square feet of copper sheet metal to make all this.  We had estimated it would only take 14 square feet, at $25 per foot.  We honored the original price quoted, so the price was only $350.

It took us about 2 days to get the materials, and make a large cap like this.  That is not counting the evening hours spent to respond to several e-mails, diagramming the cap to be made, sending scanned diagrams, and digital photos.

Here is the side view.  As you can see, it has a gap between the main cap to the smaller center cap above it, to allow for air flow for the venting.

Here is this copper cap fastened on that special lit section of the gazebo.  It would be neat to get a shot of it at night with it all lit up. Some of the light will also shine up through the vent, and reflect down onto the lower copper of the cap. A picture like that would be hard to get, given the low light. A tripod and a zoom lens would be needed to take give it a 4 to 5 second exposure.

He said they were pleased with it, but he now wished he had thought to asked for a steeper pitch than the main roof, so it would have been more visible from the ground.