Making a (Wearable!) Color Test Strip for Enamels using the Cloisonné Technique

Some time ago I took a class in cloisonné enameling and returned quite eager to get started on my first project. So I took the plunge and ordered some fine silver cloisonné wire and a whole spectrum of yummy colors of transparent Japanese leaded enamels. I chose Japanese enamels for the brilliance and variety of colors; I chose transparent enamels as opposed to opaque enamels so that the fine silver backdrop of my piece with its wave texture would be visible through the enamel.  Opaque enamels might be better suited over copper, for example, or where the background of your enameled piece doesn’t need to be visible.

In order to determine exactly how these colors would fire over fine silver – it should be noted that fired enamels bear very little, if any, resemblance to their appearance in powder form -- I made a color test strip. Not wanting to waste a good piece of fine silver on a mere test, I decided to design a slightly more interesting piece that could be worn as a pendant. Accordingly, I first crafted a textured rectangle of fine silver with a hanging hole.

Before going any further with my description, I'd like to say a few words about safety precautions with enamels in general but with leaded enamels in particular.  Think about the effect on your lungs of inhaling powdered glass!  Every step I took during the creation of this color test strip was made while wearing an N95 3M particulate mask to avoid inhaling the enamel dust. I also mixed, washed and applied these enamels outdoors on my deck. When I was finished working, I packed up all my supplies and thoroughly washed down the table on which I was working (there's nothing quite like wetting enamel to keep the particles from becoming airborne), washed my hands, stripped off my clothes and threw them into the washing machine, and took a shower. I didn't want to allow a single grain of enamel to cling to me anywhere. Always work sensibly with enamels. Even non-lead-bearing enamels are harmful if inhaled.

Once I had the pendant fired, burnished and tumbled, I brushed the front of the pendant with enamel adhesive and then used a sifter to uniformly apply a layer of clear flux (enamel) over the entire piece. When it was dry, I fired the pendant at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit for exactly two minutes in a pre-heated kiln and then quickly removed it to cool. Then I did exactly the same thing to the reverse side of the piece to counter-enamel it. The clear flux acts as a barrier between the fine silver and the colored enamel to enable the colors to remain true. Sometimes enamel colors, when applied directly to fine silver, have a tendency to change. This is especially true with pinks and reds which will sometimes turn orange when applied to fine silver.

I then applied my cloisonné wire to the pendant, adhering it by dipping it first into enamel adhesive. I took care to ensure that I cut the edges of the wire at precise right angles so all parts of the edges would come in contact with the adjoining pieces; you don't want to leave any gaps which might allow the enamel to flow out of its cell or worse, show when you're grinding down your finished piece and suddenly a gap appears. Once dry, I fired the pendant again. Because the flux re-melts during firing, the cloisonne wire actually sinks into the flux and is permanently captured as the piece cools off. Here's how the pendant looked after the cloisonné wire was fired in place:

You can see that the ends of the cloisonné wire extend over the edges of the pendant; this is done deliberately to avoid cutting the ends too short. It's safe to trim this excess wire after the first few coats of enamel have been applied and fired.

Before proceeding, I drew a rough diagram showing the placement of my wire and wrote the code numbers of the enamel colors I planned to use into the cells so I could keep track of which colors I wanted to place where and also have the ability to remember which colors I used on the test strip for future reference.

Since I had already washed the enamels and placed them into coded jars, I was ready to roll. I spooned out small amounts of the colors I had selected and placed them in numerical sequence into a plastic paint tray, adding a few drops of distilled water to each color to prepare them for wet-packing into the cells.

Then the fun began as I carefully filled the cells with their assigned colors. It's not necessary to put down the entire first layer; so I applied just the first few and fired them in place. Again, 1500 degrees F for two minutes. I used a tripod because now, with the reverse side of the pendant counter-enameled, the piece needed to be suspended so that the back wouldn't melt against the firing surface (a square of mica placed on my kiln furniture to protect it from the melting enamel). All subsequent firings after the counter-enameling were done on a tripod.

The applied but unfired enamel almost has the appearance of powdered sugar when it's dry enough to fire.

I continued to apply the enamel to each cell and fired the pendant. I also again counter-enameled the back, this time adding a solid color to the entire reverse side before firing again.

Here, you can see the first full layer of color after firing. It's necessary to continue applying and firing layers of enamel until they reach or slightly exceed the height of the cloisonne wire -- any excess can be ground down later, but ultimately the piece should feel smooth and level to the touch once the piece is finished.

 

Repeated firings were done as more and more layers of color were built up on the piece.

Here's another photo showing how I achieved shading of colors in some of the cells -- I applied enamel selectively. These areas turned darker when they were fired.

 
After the final layer of enamel had been fired, I finished the test strip by burnishing the surface under running water with an alundum stone and polishing it with successively finer grits (120, 200, 400 and 800) of diamond pad grinding sticks. I carefully removed any remaining glass powder residue with a glass brush and finally fired the pendant one more time to fire-polish it and return it to a nice shiny gloss finish.

Once finished, I mounted the pendant on a silver chain and now wear this piece whenever I'm working with my Japanese enamels as a reminder of how each color looks once fired.  And instead of having a pile of random wasted color test pieces, I have a lovely cloisonné enamel pendant I can wear any time!

written by Beverly Miller Gallerani of Mango Tango Designs

Tips From the Team

Here are some great tips for working with metal clay, from members of the Etsy MetalClay Team…

From Glenda J. Camara-Skarie (AdoriLargento): use a double-pointed compass or divider to make ring bands and earrings. For the ring band it is very easy to change the width of it. For the earrings it will make a duplicate every time.

 

 

Team members Liad Wischnia-Nemeth (ByLiad), Anna Siivonen(Annasiivonen) and Joy Funnell (JoyFunnellEtsy) all recommend using baby wipes to remove small cracks, smooth clay, wipe away dust and clean tools. Joy says she loves them! She uses a sharp craft knife to remove any excess clay from edges and then cleans up the edges with the wipes. It gives her the smooth edges that she likes. She adds that the wipes can be recycled to reclaim the silver, or just rinsed out in a glass of water so the silver settles to the bottom to be recovered. Also, Joy says if she gets briefly interrupted while working, she simply covers her clay with a wet wipe and it keeps just fine!

Zoe Nelson (ZoeNelson) recommends: roll leftover clay into a ball and store it in plastic wrap. It won't dry out as fast as a lump because it has a smaller surface area.

Karen West (EggToothOriginals) shared this tip: I like to use Aura 22 Gold to dress up fine silver PMC3 once in awhile. I had mixed results using the kiln only to fire it.  Here's what I do now for great results: Follow kiln firing directions. Once pieces are cooled, remove them from the kiln. Working with one piece at a time, heat them with a butane torch just until the piece glows red. Remove torch. While the piece is still hot, grab it with cross-locking tweezers and burnish the gold using an agate burnisher. Follow with brushing, tumbling or whatever you would normally do to burnish the rest of the piece.

Liz Hall (LizardsJewelry) suggests: I keep a candle handy in my cutting blade cup to run my blades across—keeps the clay from sticking and it’s much easier/quicker to do a quick swipe than lubing it up with some other product. Plus it doesn't seem to mess with the clay like some anti stick products do.

From Christine Street Gregg (ChocolateAndSteel) we have this tip: have lots of toothpicks handy. They are good for setting stones, for poking holes, adding Black Max to small areas, setting resin and drying bails around.

One of my (EvelynPelati) favorite tips is for when I need to cut a shape centered within a shape. If I’m using tempates that are flat, I always cut out the inner shape first. Then I center the outer shape over it and cut. Visually it’s easier to center this way.  If I’m using high-walled cutters, like tubes—I take the outer shape and make a light impression in the clay. Then I cut my center shape in the middle of it. Then I cut the outer shape using my impressed guideline. I do this because I can’t see through the cutters to cut the way I described previously. And, if I cut out the outer shape all the way through first, the outer shape can become distorted when cutting the inner shape.

Last, we have a fantastic “bonus tip” from team member Catherine Witherell (HappyDayArt)! Catherine has written a tutorial about how to make custom cookie cutters for making uniform cut-out bead caps. Don’t miss this valuable lesson! Click this link or scroll down to the next blog post.

Thank you to all the team members who generously shared their knowledge with us.

~ Evelyn Pelati

The Little Blob Link Bracelet

A bunch of us on the team are taking part in a charm swap again. We had so much fun the first time that new members really wanted to do it too and some of us, me included, jumped at the chance to trade charms again.

The last time, our swap hostess Teresa Boland gathered enough charms so that we got to assemble two extra bracelets and they were donated to worthy causes. We are going to do that again this time because we really liked sharing our good fortune at receiving all these beautiful charms made by our enthusiastic members.

I made two fused and textured bracelets last time and one of them went with a set of the charms to our first chosen charity and the other one I kept for my own team charms.

I learned to fuse fine silver wire from Anne Mitchell and I've made plenty of fused chains in the last five years. Recently I began working on a new style of fused chain that was inspired by another etsy seller, Kathy Van Kleeck. She makes some wonderfully organic fused sterling silver chains to accompany her hand formed fine silver PMC links. While I don't know exactly how she makes her necklaces, I was excited to start experimenting in my own way to fuse some fine silver wire links into a handmade bracelet that could eventually hold my new set of charms. I also wanted to share this technique with my team members and our current charm swap hostess Kelly Fehr.

This is what I came up with (click on each photo for a bigger view):

And this is how I made it:

I found myself a wooden dowel that wasn't too big. For this small chain, I got one that runs about 5/16th inch.


That's 7.5 to 8 millimeters in diameter.


I also used:

20 gauge fine silver wire and I wrap it snuggly around the dowel


a commercially made sterling silver clasp
a 5 millimeter 18 gauge sterling silver jump ring to attach the clasp

cutting pliers
chain nose pliers OR
needle nose pliers


a small hand held butane torch - I like this one in particular for the small gauge of wire I use in this project as other more heavy duty ones can be too hot.


Check it out here where there are some instructions for use.

a fire brick that you can get from any ceramics store, with some grooves scraped into it


a bowl of water for quenching the hot silver

a tumbler with stainless steel shot for smoothing and polishing your chain

Optional extras:

-your charms
-handmade PMC bead caps
-18 gauge 6 millimeter sterling silver jump rings - one for each charm
-liver of sulphur for patina
-fine silver wire in various gauges so you can make balled head pins to attach beads or charms
-silver polishing pads or cloth
-gems, pearls, beads

So, after you've wrapped the 20 gauge wire around the dowel, pull the coil off and cut the links apart. Make as many as you think you'll need. My bracelet has 28 links. You can also make extra links if you want to. You could make two bracelets and use one for charms and another for pearls and you'll get more practice.


next, you want to bend each link like this:


then cross those two ends to make a piece that looks like this:


Here is the tricky part where you will need some practice to get good. You could start with a thicker gauge of wire, like 18 or 16 gauge which can be much easier to fuse, especially if you are a beginner.

Anyway, let's say you have practiced.

I like to turn the light low, turn on the torch and have my link on the firebrick. I use a small quiet flame and slowly heat up the link:


It is going to start to get orange hot and I keep heating until it just begins to look a little shiny:


Now look at this next photo and how much brighter it looks at the join.


That is the optimum moment to point the flame at that spot and it will melt together very quickly. It's most important to remove the flame as soon as you see it melt together because a split second later the whole link can melt and split apart and roll into a ball and be lost forever.

I told you it was tricky!

After this step, it's okay to quench in a bowl of water.


This is what the first link looks like fused and this is when I would take my pair of chain nose pliers and squeeze my blob to make it look a bit less blobby and pointy and more even and smooth and also shape it the way I want it to look:


So now you want to add another link. Here is the set up:


Here is another shallower groove I can set a link this small into:


So remember:

Cut the links:


bend them and cross them:


fuse a few:


and here's a tip to make the process more efficient:

Always link two fused links with one that you are about to fuse instead of fusing one on each time. So when you have a length of chain made, use an open link to attach a new single fused link to the length of chain you already have and you will be adding two at a time.

Here is a relative size comparison:


So when it's done, add the clasp with the jump ring, shape each link, tumble for a couple of hours, give it a patina, polish off the high points so the details show and assemble it with all your charms or beads.

and here are some detail shots (click on each photo for a larger view):








and the oxidized and polished end result:


I know, I am a ham. Enjoy making some chain!