Decals

The decals we use on torch-fired enamel are called ceramic waterslide decals. Homemade decals can be printed on older model laser printers that use ink that contains high percentages of red iron oxide. Red iron oxide is a colorant that survives the firing. Because there is a lot of interest in decals for ceramics, glass and enamel, you'll find lots of information about homemade decals on the Internet. . . Commercial ceramic decals also can be purchased online. The images are created with pigments that survive the maturing temperature of our enamel, which is 1,400° - 1,500°F. . . Search for mini decals, which will bring up jewelry-sized selections.

One can the ceramic decals also combine with other enameling-techniques. After counter enameling I apply a thin layer of flux onto the fine silver front- surface and fire it. In the right upper corner I apply a ceramic decal, dry and fire it. The next step were bending and applying the cloisonné-wires on the left site. The piece was fired again to stick the wires. It follows the inserting of the enamel in the cloisonné cells. The ceramic decal was only with a very clear flux covered. After firing, the enamel surface was grinded and polished as usual.

Left brooch: "Girl", right Broche: "Brooch for Madme Fisher"

In the same manner one can combine champlevé-technique with decals.

In beginners or teen enameling courses it was popular using  black and white ceramic decals. After drying and firing the decals they were crayoned with enamel-watercolor. After this the work pieces were fired very careful. 

Left: "Landscape" 5 x 5 cm,

Right: "Brooch with frame", mouted onto a Palisander-board. Board ca 12 x 12 cm

Edmund 

WOW! this is a great tutorial - I have one question before I try this method - 

Question: once you apply the decal and fire it - how long do you fire the decal ? and when all the enamels are in place in the cloisonne wires do you also add some clear flux over the decal then fire the whole piece?

Edmund, did you ever try to make your own decals with a printer or copier using drawings or photos as an original? Kind regards

Gabor

Trish, Edmund thank you for the tutorial. -  ( http://www.emailkunst.de/abziehbilder.html )

ps. Merry Christmas. :-)

Just wondering, can you do that with a normal printer? I know that there're these converted laser printers (like found here http://www.ceramictoner.com , you can find roughly the same converted printers elsewhere as well) but the price is rather steep (2499 pounds + vat for a starter kit here http://www.digitalceramics.com for instance). What has to be modified there, I don't know.

For inkjet it's recommended to have particle sizes about 10 times smaller than the size of the nozzles, which means sub-micrometer with recent printers (which ceramic pigments fall in that category?). Some guys do that with colloidal silver to print circuit boards (there even was a project on kickstarter recently, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1597902824/agic-print-printing-circuit-boards-with-home-print). On the industrial side Xaar sells printheads specially for that application (http://ceramics.xaar.com), don't know how different they are from normal ones, but I don't think we'll find that on a desktop printer anyway.

Otherwise there's this guy http://photoceramics-center.com who sells some solutions, he doesn't print a decal but some sticky goo and drops some fine powder over it. For a single colour, I guess one can do that by printing a sticky mixture (like CMC) with a normal inkjet printer with a CD tray.

Anyway, that's my two cents!

Regards

Vincent

I love your article and your examples! Are these custom printed ceramic decals? I see that the lines in the top two pieces stay black, not the sepia of laser printed decals.

You need to have the carbon cartridges that the laser printers run on - I found one at the recycling center in the electronics area - as a matter of fact there were several - People replace them with ink jet printers - I don't know why, because all the cartridges are expensive -

Are you referring to Edmunds article or the blurb from Jewelry Making Daily?

I'm referring to Edmund's article. My question concerned the photo of the enamels "Girl" and "Brooch for Madam Fisher, Edmund describes them as cloisonne with ceramic decals and the lines have remained black, not sepia. Didn't know whether he printed them or they were bought which might explain the difference in color.