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depletion guilding sterling silver if using opaque enamel?

  • theresa zack
    • 0 posts
    April 26, 2011 9:14 AM EDT
    I would still give it a try, it may work wonderful, or may be horrible, but I think its a good experiment.   Old enamels may have been coated with something much different than resins they use now a days that are jewelry grade resins.   It could be a whole different senario on an experiment.   What do we have to loose.   I will give it a try.   There are many issues, yellowing of the resin, pulling of the enamels, expansion issues.   But I have learned many things with experiments.   So when I do some I will upload my results.   Thanks.
  • Julie B
    • 37 posts
    August 22, 2015 10:27 PM EDT

    Hello,

    I am just wondering...if I am using opaque enamel on cast sterling silver, is it still neccessary to depletion guild the metal?

    I am trying to understand if the depletion guilding has a purpose other than to help keep the transparent enamel colors clear.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Best Regards,

    Julie

     

  • Trish White
    • Moderator
    • 114 posts
    August 23, 2015 8:24 AM EDT

    Sterling Silver contains Copper which interacts with transparent enamels - by Depletion Guilding you are raising the fine silver to the surface, thus giving you a clean free pure silver surface to interact with the transparents - Opaques are dense and do not need the fine silver behind them. Remember, you don't depletion guild copper when you apply opaque enamels - the same holds true for Sterling Silver.