Wet sanding with  360, 400, 600, 1200 sandpapers will give you a nice smooth even surface to enamel.

Thank you for your response.  I was afraid of damaging the fine silver by sanding.  Now I will do so.

Mary Rose

It is often better to structure the silver surface, instead of being polished to a high gloss. The transparent colors becomes more vivid.

If you have a roller mill, you can structure the annealed sheet together with eg an orange net, a coarse paper (kitchen towel) or the like. If no roll is present, one can structure the sheet with a ball-peen hammer, a hammer peen, or by engraving.

edmund

Thank You.  You are saying that texture on the silver will cause the trans enamels to become more colorful.

Mary Rose

Hallo Mary Rose,

Yes, because the enamel layers are in the depressions thicker and over the higher parts thinner, the colors are more lively.

Thank you for the clarification,

Mary Rose

I agree that texturing the silver is better, but for me the best is to texture and then flash fire the surface. This is where you put the piece on a tripod and heat from below until the surface flashes, or melts slightly. This is best done in the dark, so you can see the red flash on the metal. If you are careful, your texture remains, but is now highly polished. This method of polishing will withstand the heat of the kiln, whereas mechanical polishing (for me) turns cloudy.

Hello, I have just recently started enameling on sheet fine silver.  I have experience with enameling on PMC with no problem.

 But with the sheet silver, 20 gauge, I find scratches on the silver and wonder if I should file them off with wet dry papers or if this would damage the silver.  It looks very beautiful enameled.  I am using 1 inch round pieces.  Thank you, Mary Rose