Highly oriented Cu films are grown under "dirty" conditions by simple thermal evaporation onto Si(100) substrates prepared by wet chemical etching. The films are grown and characterized using equipment and techniques appropriate to an advanced undergraduate laboratory. These experiments can provide students with an accessible introduction to advanced thin film techniques. The etched Si surface is extraordinarily chemically inert, enabling high surface quality to be maintained while the substrates are transferred in air into a low-vacuum (10(-5) Torr) resistive evaporator during deposition. After deposition of similar to 100 nm of Cu, the films are characterized by theta-2 theta x-ray diffraction, using a student diffractometer with low x-ray intensity, detection sensitivity, and resolution. Clear evidence of oriented growth is found for the etched substrates, whereas films grown on unetched substrates are disordered. Other measurements suggest that the oriented films are in fact fully epitaxial.