Cloisonne Enameling: The opaque white coming into the transparent. I think it was leaking under the cloison wires?

Hello, I had a go with some transparent enamels this time in my cloisonne, but I had a problem with the opaque white coming into the transparent. I think it was leaking under the cloison wires? I tried to fire the opaque and transparent at the same time, I think was a mistake? I think the opaque leaked under the wire at the higher temperature it takes to fire clear?

Thanks for your kind assistance (I need it!)

Geoff,

Your cloisonne work looks great, you have the transparent green nice and clear.  In my experience when you apply the cloison wires and sink them down into the flux you should not have one color moving into other cells. If the wire is not all the way in the flux when you apply the colors the enamel can travel under the cloison wires. Lets say you put in the opaques enamel in all assigned cells of the cloisonne piece, and it is now dry after going all the way around. When you put in the second color = green here, it is wet and will suck the opaque enamels through any open space under the wire. The dry enamels will move toward the water. You even have to be careful the enamel it does not come through on the sides where the cloison wires are not real tight, as I can see here where the dark color enamel pulled through into the aqua cell.

So just check after you sink the cloison wires into the flux enamel that you have complete contact. If you do not I would rather burnish the wires down carefully, as they are very soft now and re-fire. This is common on a domed surface. Also as I work I try to keep the piece damp to avoid this and dry it all at once before firing.

Great job! Patsy

What is Cloisonne

What is Cloisonne?

Cloisonne (pronounced cloy-zon-ay, French for ”partition”) is an ancient metalwork technique that makes use of small, precious metal filaments and colorful glass enamels to create brilliant artwork. The metal wires are bent into shapes to create small cells, (partitions) of designs, and many coats of finely ground glass enamel are fired into them until one unique piece of art is rendered. Cloisonne is most commonly used in jewelry making, though illustrations of the craft can be found in many facets of the art world, including the production of hand-made dishes, vases and abstract pottery.

Though the art form’s origins are most likely Middle Eastern, Chinese Cloisonne is the most renowned and permeated throughout the world. Cloisonne’s popularity spread quickly throughout Asia and Europe, and examples of the art can be seen in Byzantine

mosaics, inside Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice, and in prized Russian Czarist jewelry. The most notable quality in Cloisonne is the art master’s exceptional attention to detail in creating unique designs from the pure silver base and 24 karat gold filaments. Every design is handcrafted, which guarantees a matchless piece of art each time. Custom designs are often painted on paper with watercolors prior to beginning the process in order to estimate the appearance of the final product.

After the original artwork is decided upon, the metal ribbon like strands of 24 karat gold wire are individually bent, twisted and oftentimes soldered together to produce a blueprint for where the colored enamels will later be painted.

This design is attached to a base of pure silver by firing it with a clear coat of glass enamel in a kiln.

After the silver pendant has cooled from its initial firing, the painting process begins. The metal filaments serve as the pattern for the colorful enamel glass, and the artisan paints only one coat at a time into the design.

The pendant is fired again and again after each consecutive enamel coat. This is a painstakingly delicate practice, but the layering and firing of each coat of glass is critical in achieving a deep, vibrant color scheme for the design. As many as 25 layers of enamel can be added to a single piece of Cloisonne jewelry. After the partitions have been enameled and fired to the artist’s satisfaction,

The pendant is polished and placed in a custom-made, perfectly fit 18-karat gold setting. Each Cloisonne rendering takes multiple weeks of dedicated attention to complete, but the finished product is guaranteed to be worth the wait. Happy Enameling!

Those Wires Can Be Hard to Stand Up!

Question – what do you use as a glue (besides Klyr Fire) for Cloisonne Wire?  I heard of something called “no spit” or vac u coat??  Appreciate your comment.  Debra Long

Hi Debra,

If you are needing a solution stronger than Klyr Fire try tragacanth. It is available on line and the best results I have had, is if I add water to the powder and let it sit over night to get a good creamy consistency. It does not take that much. And after firing, it turns to ash so brush it off before applying another coat of enameling.

If this is not enough to hold the cloison wires for your application I move to fusing the wires to the fine silver.

Thanks for the visit!
Patsy

Some enamelists use lily root powder for vertical surfaces. It can be purchased from Coral Shaffer at Enamelwork Supply in Seattle.
Barb P.

If you’re using fine silver cloisonne wire on fine silver backing you can also use Art Clay Silver’s Oil Paste or homemade lavender oil paste and fire in a kiln first. These are metal clay products that are designed to join fired metal clay to fired metal clay or any fine silver to any other fine silver metal.

Lora Hart

Thick Metal Thin Enamel

A tip credited to Valeri Timofeev .

“thick metal = thin enamel, thin metal = thick enamel” This means if you are enameling say cloisonne, you can get pretty thick enamels on the metal plate of your choice, as long as you counter the same thickness. I have enameled to a mm in thickness on 20 ga metal= thin metal. But if you have 16 ga  metal and want to enamel on it, you can do so with one layer of enamel and no counter.

Here is cloisonne enameling and the                        

enamels are approximately 1mm in depth.

And here on the left is thick metals of  16 ga with                                    one coat of flux and one color of red enamel.

Stone Setting in Enamels

Happy New Year Patsy- I will definitely pre enroll for the class- love the idea of the website!! Am currently working on a pair of earrings set with tiny (3mm) sapphires. I decided to wing it and go ahead & set the stones in a 24k thin bezel on top of gold foil and an initial coat of B3. So far they have not cracked or changed color. Any other tips that you could email me re: stone setting in enamel would be so appreciated.
Thank you so much! Karen

Karen,

I would love to see photos, I have fired sapphires, good choice, and did not have any problems. You can do all the enameling and set them before the last firing, or after you have polished the piece. I usually put stones in the kiln at 1400 degrees to see it the will take the heat, small ones = 1 mm incase they crack, I am not out too much $. When we get together I will show you how to set a stone that will not take the heat after all the firing. Good to hear you went for it.

Dear Patsy- thanks so much for the fast and valuable advice. I was worried about the empty bezel warping- that is why I set the stones so early on in the enamelling process. Will cross my fingers & hope the stones remain O.K. Will send pictures when my technological situation improves. Again, thank you!! Karen

Karen,
I have only seen the wire work warp when there is enamel on the inside of in a small space, and no enamel on the outside of the wire work, here the wires will pull in. So leaving it open or putting the stone in will be fine. If you send photos about the work as you are working on it, I think this will be interesting to others.
Thanks for sharing!

TRANSFERRING YOUR DESIGNS

TRANSFERRING YOUR DESIGNS

After you have drawn your image on paper, it is sometimes difficult to transfer this image to the base of Fine Silver. A couple of things that might help you, after you have fired the flux coat on the Fine Silver base, is to use either a Stabilo pencil or Spot Pens (made for black and white photography retouching). You can sketch out the design on the fired flux enamel coat with either of these, and place your cloisonne wires accordingly.

The lines of both will disappear in the first firing and not effect your enamels.

Repairing Cloisonne Enamels= Bubbles

I received a piece of cloisonne this week broken and wanted to share the repair process.  The piece was dropped and the enamel had completely separated from the fine silver base. Here in the photo the broken piece is sitting on a new sheet of fine silver, that has one layer of flux fired on its front, and four layers of counter enamel fired on the back of the new base . I filled the backside of the enamel piece with a very thin coat of flux, hoping this would give it a solid bond to the base, when fired. There were some cavities on the back of the broken enamel piece from the separation of the base, here I added a bit more flux, hoping to keep the enamel from sinking or forming bubbles. Next, the piece was fired in a kiln at 1400 degrees. You can see in the photo the base silver is larger then the broken enamel piece. Once it was fired and the broken enamel piece fused to the base, I could clean the edges of the enamel piece that was discolored. It was too fragile to attempt this prior to attaching it to the base. I used a diamond ball bur to clean around the edges.

The holes in the enamel piece are where bubbles did form. I needed to remove these to prevent the piece from cracking in the future. A diamond ball bur was used again, to bur through the enamel and open the bubbles. The right hole is not burred out completely. I wanted you to see what to expect as you are drilling. This is a small pin hole which will open into the whole bubble as you proceed.  The left bubbles have been opened completely, which is necessary to allow the enamel to flow smoothly into the opening.

In the third photo you can see how smoothly the enamel flowed into the openings. Even though the enamel is lower than the cloison wires, which you would expect, I have a choice to fill with matching color, or sand down the high spots.

One very important point is to fire the enamel piece you have used a diamond bur on before adding new enamel. If you add enamels to the burred area, then fire, you will have shadows in the finished enamel piece. I have also seen burnish marks in the enamels after drilling out the bubble and have concluded it can from the diamonds being worn off the bur. In this case get a new diamond bur and go over the surface are to remove the burnish marks. I have used Arkansas stones as well for repairs.

All set and ready to go back to the owner!

Overfiring Enamels

Patsy – Wow I hadn’t seen your web site before. Very impressive. I’ve been meaning to let you know about my experiments with the customers enamel, that complained of a blotchy, muddy appaence in her transparents. She thought the fine silver was contaminated. I did a test with her enamel and my enamel and her metal and my metal. I fired everything 5 times at 1400 degrees and there was no discoloration. My conclusion is that temperature makes a big difference on silver! Keep on keepin’ on!

Coral
Enamelwork Supply Co.
Settle, Wa

Coral,

Thanks for the note, and sharing your testing. I believe we have been overfiring as well!

Patsy

Making Dyes for the Hydrolic To Form Foundations for Enamel Jewelry

Hi Patsy,
I’m trying to make a dye for the hydrolic press…actually I made one, and I think the copper is to thin. What gauge should I use for the copper?
Then, do I cut the same pattern out on the thick plastic? Seems like I do!!
One more thing…what gauge fine silver do i use in this dye, for the base of an enamel piece.

Thank You so Much,                                    
Mary

Hey Mary,

If you are making a dye for the hydraulic press, you should use brass, not copper. Coper is too soft. I like 18 ga. brass. I first cut out my design in the brass sheet. Then I use carpet tape to hold it to the plexiglas. After you place the brass on the plexiglas, then you cut the same pattern in the plexiglas. When I am forming the foundations of fine silver, for a cloisonne enameled pendent I use 20 ga and if I am making earrings I will use 22 ga.

Have a great day!

Overfiring Enamels

Hi Patsy,

I hope this finds you well and having fun! I have a technical problem with my 22K+fine silver fused element from the Arrowmont workshop and hope you don’t mind my picking your brain! I’m sure your opinion is the best!

My problem:
This fused piece of gold and silver is slightly overfired but still usable-from the kilns at the workshop. There are no holes in it and the silver slightly climbed the gold wires but not so much as to obliterate cells.

I enameled it once and the Japanese enamel I used turned blotchy and ugly, so I removed all of the enamel with Etchall.

I re-enamelled it. Got some blotches but covered them with dark colors.

Upon final firing (of course) got an open pit or two…like burst bubbles.

Recoated, refired. The initial pits filled, got new ones.PITS…..but why mostly near the wires??

Recoated, refired! Same thing, old ones filled, got new ones. Some of the tiny pits seem to go all the way to the metal, some not. They are only occurring on the side to be ground…deeper enamel; not the “Russian” style side. The Russian style side was fine.

I am now removing all the enamel once again!!

I cannot figure this out since I only used fine silver and 24K gold wires. The pits occur at random spots and a bit more near wires. I’m wondering if the overfiring created some funky alloy even though my metals were pure??( I did get discoloration in the enamels too…an uncommon blotchy muddy nuisance that I didn’t expect)..Or, do I need to boil in baking soda after Etchall…is it possible there was some invisible residue from that?

Thanks in advance for any input or advice you may have!

Jan

Dear Jan,

Sounds like you have a couple of problems. One, when using the Etchall, an acid that eches out all the enamels, I will soak the piece for a day or so in water and use a stiff tooth brush to clean it well, before reenameling. There could be some acid trapped, and it would make sense in corners and next to the wire where there could be very small pits from the fusion process. This could help if it is the Etchall, but I have had the bubbles in bad enamels as well.

Usually you can tell they are bad before you fire the enamels. What you see is the enamel floating on the surface, after you have washed them. This is not to be mistaken for the fine as we call them, that we see when you initially wash the enamel. After you have washed off the fines and the water is clear some of the enamel will float = deterioration. This can cause bubbles in the enamels when firing, if it is really bad. If they are only slightly deteriorating you may see this after a few hours, when they have been sitting wet while you are working. This degree of deterioration will look cloudy in transparent enamels and never go away!

THROW AWAY ENAMELS THAT FLOAT!

The muddy, blotchy look in the bottom of your transparent enamel is the salts from the fine silver interacting with the enamels caused from high temp. In this fusion style of enameling I believe with the gold wrapped around the fine silver disc conducts the heat better. And for this style of enameling we need to lower our firing temps to 1400 degrees. I have over fired this last month as I have added more gold to the outside of the ring. This is the first time I have had the muddy, blotchy patches appear in the transparent enamels. And it takes place first in the warm colors that are senitive to over firing.

I have been happy though to be fusing my wires down, as I have been able to etch the cloudy enamels out and save the metal work.

Hope I have helped and Happy Enameling