It is now January, 2008 & I am starting to document how I designed & built a copper pyramid back in 2003. For this project I chose to use 3/4" copper pipe. Using my method, you will need the following equipment.
1. A hack saw or similar to cut the pipe. (easy part)
2. A dremel to cut some excess metal away on the bottom corner pieces.
3 . A propane torch to sweat the pipes together. (tough part)
4 . Create a make shift miter box to cut the odd angles.
5 . Create a jig to hold 3 corner pipes in place while you solde.
(I made mine out of wood & it barely made it through all of the soldering process. See last photo for reference)
I finished this project back in June of 2003 with ideas from others & a next door neighbor that sweated the pipe for me. The top piece & 4 corners I made 6" long with unions to facilitate making the pyramid any size I wanted. I drew the pipes in 3D in AutoCAD to see how they fit together. The top piece turned out to be 2 simple angle cuts with the hack saw. The bottom pieces were also 2 simple cuts, but also had to cut away some of the pipe with a dremel tool. I originally was not going to create the bottom corner pieces, but just use copper tees & 45's. A friend told me this would not work for my intended purpose, so I created the corners also. Here is a series of photos showing how the top piece was constructed.
Top Piece in PDF format This shows 4 views of the top copper piece. To cut the pipe to this shape, cut out the bottom right paper template & wrap it around about a 7" or so piece of copper pipe. This will give you the guide to cut each of the 4 pieces that make up the top section.
Bottom Corners in PDF format This shows the bottom corner copper pieces. The pieces that meet at 45 degrees are of course a simple 45 degree cut. The template for the piece that goes up at an angle to the top is shown in the top right view in the pdf file.