Dear Trish, I fire my enamels never according to time or temperature. My kiln has always a temperature of about 750-800 degree Celsius. I watch the firing thoroughly. As soon as the enamel surface is glossy, I remove the work piece from the kiln. I do this too with decals.
Onto the fine silver ground I fill at first a very thin shift of silver flux and fire it. It follows applying of the decal, drying and firing. In the next step the cloisonné-wires becomes glued onto the flux shift and fired to fuse the wires with the flux layer. Then I fill the cells in 3-4 steps with transparent enamels and during the same steps the decal gets covered, likewise in 3-4 steps with very clear flux.
After this follow grinding and polishing the enamel surface as usual.
If one works with colored decals it is important to make at first a test, whether the decal tolerate the flux-cover. Some of the decal colors become discolored under flux.
Dear Gabor, many years ago, I take part at an enamel symposium in West Dean College, Chichester, GB. One of the tutors shows how to do b-w-decals with a special copying machine and a special toner. The copy was transferred onto a very glossy paper. From the paper one could transfer the print it with a warm iron onto the pre enameled surface. But I have this never done at home
Hy Candy,
Thank you very much. Yes, these are commercial decals. A lot of them are only black and white without any color. Also the "Girl" and the "Fish". Many years ago I received these decals from a workshop-liquidation. Many of the decals are from the 1920 - 1930 years.
Dear Trish,
The toners are suspected to be carcinogenic. Many firms replaced it by other printers.
Edmund
Many thanks for your reply, Edmund. I appreciate all the details. You were fortunate in your decals. The designs aren't your average decal designs and you combined them so beautifully with the cloisonne. I print my own decals with my HP laser printer and fire them until they are smooth and glossy and no trace of the decal backing is visible and the surface smooth. I haven't found a need to protect them with flux on top since they are now part of the enamel surface. However if the cloisonne wires and enamel surface are to be ground down as you do, Edmund, protecting the surface with flux layers makes sense. You bring so many good points up. They make me think!
Hallo Gabor,
I think screen printing was and is the most popular printing method for bulk commodity before ceramic printers were contrived. But screen printing is very costly for single prints. I think, sooner or later these method becomes also in the ceramic industry by the ceramic printers replaced. Single prints are then not longer a problem. But the ceramic printers are at the moment extreme expensive. Not made for layman's.
Edmund
I have an inexpensive laser printer the HP LaserJet P1102w. http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/us/en/pdp/printers/hp-laserjet-pro-p1102w-printer?jumpid=re_r11662_redirect_ETR&ts=20150407155912_87R3TZLZQFkS&HP-LaserJet-Pro-P1102w-Printer. It is inexpensive (on sale for a bit over $100), compact and prints wirelessly. It came with a sample print cartridge which I am still using since I don't print a lot. I think someone mentioned that the most important part of the toner is the iron oxide content, the rest just burns away. I couldn't find the iron oxide content from the salesman of online and decided to just try it and see. It works well and I've been very happy with it. When this cartridge runs out of toner, I plan on getting a toner cartridge used by the banks for printing checks that need to be read electronically and must have a certain percentage of iron oxide to be read.
For the decal paper, I buy online from Beldecal http://www.beldecal.com/laser_paper.html, the laser/copier water-slide model decal paper, 8.5 x 11 inches on clear backing, not the white. Look at the left hand listing in the yellowish box. Or you can try the glossy paper method or transparency method, which uses no backing paper. However using an iron to transfer the printing to an enameled piece sounds a bit tricky so I just use the decal paper.
Good luck with your experiments. I would love to see the results.
Hallo Candy,
it is important to make the first enamel layer very, very thin, and on this thin layer the decal to place and to fire. The thin enamel layer prevents, that the cloisonné wires sink to deep into these first enamel-shift. After baking the decal, I bend the cloisonné wires, glue it on, and fire it. My Cloisonné-wires are 0,2-0,25 mm thick and about 0,8 mm in height. So one can stack an about 0,7 mm thick enamel-shift into the cells, as well as over the decal. That lets enough place for grinding of the complete enamel-surface.
Edmund