Could someone please tell me if the enamels used for cloisonné sould be grinded and washed or simply grinded? Also what is the best method, mixing with water or with some kind of adhesive? If so, which one? I do my wet packing with water from the faucet and 80 mesh enamels and it is hard to keep the grains together. Would really appreciate your help! Where can I find on glaze enamels? I've looked everywhere!
Alexis
Hallo Alexis,
If you want to have really clear transparency after firing, you must wash or sieving out the fine dust, which arise from grinding. Wash the grinded enamel 2 or three times with fresh water and then 2 times with destilled water. Dry the coarse enamel grains, and collect the fine graines sorted by colors. The fine grains you can use very well as a conter-enamel.
If you mix the coarser enamel (about 80 - 100 mesh is very good) for inlaying with destilled water, add a few drops of an holding agent to the mix. You can use nearly any holding agent so as Tragant, Lotus-root extract, rice-slime (often used in China) or better a commercial holding agent like Klyr-fire, because the prior called agents acidify very quick.
I myself use since many many years a very thin solution of wall-paper-glue. If it stands cold, it is useable for some weeks. My mix: 1 knife-tip wall-paper-glue powder to about 30-40 ml destilled water.
To mix my enamels for inlaying, I use plastic-egg-spoons. In a half spoon with enamel and water I give 2-3 drops of my glue. That is enough to hold the inlayed enamel save in the cloisonné-cells. The wall-paper-glue burns away, also in transparent enamels, without any residue.
Edmund
Hallo Alexis,
I say always: " Perfect Enamel work needs always counter-enamel". It is not only an esthetic point, but also a technic-must. Conter-enamelled work is much more stable against deforming and the enamel don't jump off so quick. So I make my jewelery up to a 5 x 5 cm (~2 x 2 inch), from only 0,6 -0,7 mm (~0,025 inch) fine silver sheet. And never I got any reclamation because of destroyed enamel surfaces.
If you want to have a really transparent enamel-shift, you must allways sifting-out the fine enamel dust, whether you sift the enamel layer or whether you work in the wet inlay technique. If you work with opaque enamels, washing and sift-off the enamel dust is not nescessary.
Friendly greetings from the wet and cold Bavaria.
Hallo Alexis,
Click HERE for a skript about Doming.
The hammers are called Ball Pein Hammer. If you google under "Ball pein hammer" in the picture serach youll find a lot of different hammers and if you click onto a picture you find the supplier.
If you want to dome larger sheets such a mold is very helpful. A carpenter or a wood turner can make you such a mold. Here you need no ball pein hammer, but a rubber hammer or a mallet.
Edmund
Hi Alexis,
please excuse me, but I was interrupted in my first e-mail. Today is a wonderful, warm and sunny day and my two youngest grandchildren 5 and 6 years old, just had to immediately go into an ice cream parlor with me. HERE you find a PDF file how to dome work pieces.
Edmund
Hi Alex,
what exactly do you want to do? Would you just bend the edges of wall panels, or do you want to dome a whole sheet to make a bowl? If you specify what you want to do, I think you'll find here in the forum a specialist, who can give you tips.
The tools you need are also depend from what you want to do. Copper- or silversmith have many dozen different hammers and stakes.
Various videos how one can shape copper, you can find on "You Tube" under the heading of "metal forming", "Coppersmith Coppersmithing" or "Rais or raising copper ".
Edmund