Testing more metals : Brass, Aluminium and Coated Aluminium

After the response from the fabricators I was motivated to find metals that could reach some kind of parallel to that of the surface quality I desired.

First is Brass:

• The process to mould the metal is one I have used previously - the circular moulds and shaping and bending and folding the metal around objects to create these creases.
• This seemed to have duelled throughout the annealing process and although I used wire wool to polish for 20 minutes, the shine didn't improve a lot. I will try to use other metal polish on this to see if it brings out any more shine. 
• Overall, I wont use this metal again, Gilding metal worked so much better. 

Aluminium:

• Using my method of moulding I created this sheet of aluminium. This appeared to have a better reflective quality and can be polished to look even better.
• The benefits of using aluminium is that it is cheap, and can be moulded at thicker 

Coated Aluminium 

• On its coated side it burned, which to my surprise caused amazing detail within the material, which I received good feedback from. Everyone in the studio thought it looked more amazing than the high shine of the rest of the mirrored gold side. 

Further Developments

• Since the last sample seemed so surprisingly successful, I will buy a larger piece of this metal and burn the whole side on one side and polish the other. 

• Even if I don't decide to burn it, the reflective quality of the gold is much more than plain aluminium and therefore is closer to that of stainless steel.