Hello everyone

I live in the South of France and I have been designing 14K jewelry for a few years. I am not a jeweler myself and I have the pieces manufactured in a workshop. I design some "enamelled" bands (which are cast, not benchmade), but the workshop I work with uses a kind of lacquer (they say it's formica?) because they don't have the know-how with vitreous enamel.

I really would like to use real enamel and I am wondering if I could learn to do it myself. There are some workshops I could attend, but they are all for enamelling flat copper discs.

Do you think that someone like me with no jewelry training can teach himself to enamel and polish these cast bands? 

Already after quick look on the forum, I found a recommendation of a book ("enamelling on precious metals" by Jeanne Werge-Hartley), and learnt that 14K is not suitable for enamelling, and that I should use 18K.

Below are two photos I put only to illustrate the type of enamelling I'm trying to do. These are not my works.

I thank you in advance for any advice you can give me.

Thanks a lot Trish for your opinion and the book recommendations.

I will have samples cast in silver and test myself. I wonder if the workshop can cast in fine silver though.

Also, I have 3 questions:

1. Do you if it's possible to gold plate pieces after enamelling? Like that if I use fine silver I could have them plated and use them for display or photos.

2. If 14K isn't suitable for transparent enamel, is it still possible to use it with opaque enamel and clean the rest of the band? 

3. If you look at the ring stack photo in my first post, would you say that is opaque enamel on these bands? Or something I've seen in shops called "opale" enamel, or semi-transparent if I understand correctly?

Thanks in advance

Seb

This post was edited by Seb Guy at November 10, 2019 5:25 AM EST

Hi Seb,

Yes you can gold plate on silver after enameling. Of course it'll coat only areas that are not covered with enamel. Therefore if you use transparent/opalescent, you'll have to get used to playing with the color contrast (and it won't look the same as with solid gold). You can try to gold plate before but be prepared to see the plating disappear or turn into green gold.

For 14k there was something said in this Glass On Metal article also. Doesn't seem obvious, but never tried.

 

 

Thanks Vincent for that great article.

I don't know the exact composition of the 14K casting grain used to cast my pieces, but according to the article over 4% Zinc or too much copper could create problems. All this will require a lot of testing.

If it could sidestep these issues, I could switch to 18K gold without it impacting the end cost too much.

Regarding plating, it's interesting that it's possible, but I personally strongly dislike it since it isn't durable.

I would much rather work with gold, the problem with gold being that it of course changes how all transparent enamels appear. Transparent blues change to ugly green, etc.

Would it be possible to have 2 layers, white and then the color?

To keep the metallic shine I'd rather start with a thin layer of flux, put silver foil on top and then the blue enamel. For thin layers transparent colors on white don't look considerably different from opaque, maybe like opalescent if the layer is a bit thicker. Try it on a piece of copper first to see if you like the way it looks.

 

This post was edited by Vincent Paeder at November 14, 2019 1:51 PM EST

Will do, thanks a lot