I'm trying a Byzantine style cloissonne icon, but using a 34g copper sheet as the backing for the enamel instead of a thin sheet of gold.  The metal backplate idea is from Margarete Seeler's Enamel Medium for Fine Art.  When done, it will be cold-connected to a more solid backplate.

 

When I heat up the piece in the kiln it warps terribly. 

 

Any ideas?

 

 

34 gauge is very, very thin, right? Are you counter enamelling?

I use very thin (0.2/0.3 mm) sheet often, but I am careful to dome it and counter-enamel it.

If you are working a flat piece, you may want to use thicker sheet (0.5 mm perhaps, I think that's about 24 gauge, or 26 if you want thinner) *and* counter-enamel, *and* you may still have to weight it down with warm, flat irons when it comes out of the kiln. The bigger the piece the thicker the sheet will have to be, though.

The thicker the sheet, the least warping you will have, but working perfectly flat pieces you almost always have to weight it down, and counter-enamel it.

If the piece is very small, you may be able to get away with thin sheet by balancing enamel with counter-enamel and flattening. I find the resulting pieces too fragile, though, much more glass than metal. Doming gives a lot of strenght to a piece.

Have you annealed the sheet before enamelling? Have you counter-enamelled? Have you the piece layed onto a well fitting firing rack? All this is important.
Edmund

I have a look into the Margaret Seeler book. I think you mean the technique on page 116-118? I have not exactly worked so, but similar. The two images are pressed in 0.1mm (38g) foil. If you fire only the foil, it throws herself very much. I proceeded as follows. 1) The design is pressed into the annealed foil or rather the foil was folded by hand. 2) The back was sprayed with adhesive-water, and the conter-enamel has been sieved on. 3) After drying, the foil was turned over and the front was sieved with enamels. 4) A 0.8 mm thick copper plate was sprayed with adhesive-water and a thick layer of enamel was sieved on. The plate had the same dimensions as the film 5) The foil was laid with the conter-enamel down onto the copper plate. The enamel-site of the copper-sheet was at the top so that the enamel-layers lays on each other. 6) This compound was placed on an unglazed ceramic plate. The back of the copper plate was enamel-free! 7) The ceramic plate + copper foil plate-composite was put into the about 850 degrees hot kiln and was fired. 8) If the enamel was well fired, the tile with composite was removed from the oven. After a very short cooling, a second tile was placed on the visible side of the picture. The whole was weighted with an approximately 2-pound iron plate. If you also the back of the composite material want to enamel, add between the tile and the conter-enamel a sheet of glass-fibre-mat. The conter enamel can not stick to the tile

Because I'm an "oldie" my night sleep is not the best. So I have a lot of time to recap on the question in the forums. So I was thinking also about your question. Do you work with such a thin film because it is made of gold? If so, you should keep in your mind that you can not grind the enamel, without devastate the foil! I would the following method prefer: Sawing out from a 0,7 mm copper-sheet with a jewellery-saw the outline of the design If you can solder, solder the plate with the cutout to an equal big 0.7 mm copper sheet. Use silver solder extra hard (operating temperature about 770 degrees Celsius). Better is to use a brass-Lot, operating temperature 800 degrees Celsius. You can soldering in your kiln. If you are not able to solder, sieve an enamel-layer on the back of the blade with the cutout. Place the two sheets together and fire in the kiln. If you want, you can also the back of the workpiece conter-enamel After pickling, you can fill the cavity with the wire construction and filling the cells with enamel. After firing, you can grind the workpiece well. If the enamel and the metal surface is perfect, you can gilding the metal-plated surface with a cyanide-containing gold-bath solution. The enamel become not affected by the gold bath. A friend of mine works since years in this technique. Also after years the gilding looks perfect.

I always find it very unfortunate if the questioner does not tell whether the answers have helped him. It would be interesting to know whether the problem was solved. In addition, a small "thank you" would be the respondents make happy.

To everyone who responded,

 

Thanks very much! 

 

I got whalloped by Real Life (TM) and my byzantine piece has been gathering dust all this time.  I'm now able to start on enameling again.  :)

 

I had a chance to enamel about twenty-four cast pieces over the last few weeks to get back in the hang of things.  16 were fully successful, another were so-so, and four were dismal failures.  Now I'm going back thru my enameling books again to figure out why some of them came out wrong.  More accurately, what  I forgot to do, forgot about, or just plain did wrong. 

 

I'm also putting together a check-list to follow for each step.  I have to work in nooks and crannies of spare time, in between my day job and other family and societal obligations, so it's dreadfully easy to forget a step when there are gaps in construction steps lasting several days.

 

I'll be working on it again this summer and let you all know how it turns out.  I think that, with what I'm learning, re-learning, and what you've all provided, I'll have a success this time around.

 

Hopefully I'll get to meet some of you at the Enamelist Society conference this September.