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Monday, January 18, 2010

Enameling Experimentation and First Attempts at Fusing Fine Silver

Enameling Experimentation

So, I wanted to spend a few minutes playing around with enamels.

I took a charm I’d made out of bronze clay.



First I enameled the back (for strength).




Then I put black enamel into the channels on half of the charm.



And here’s what it looked like after my first firing.



Then I added enamel (powdered glass) to the other side of the charm.



And fired it.



Here’s the finished product (after I polished the bronze back up).



I’m not impressed with the charm, but I was experimenting so I’m cool with it. And now I have some ideas for things I can work on.


First Attempts at Fusing Fine Silver

These were very unsuccessful. As I mentioned in my other blog, I had to use a torch with more power than the Blazer micro-torch.

But it’s going to take some finesse and practice for me have better skill at fusing. This…



Was my first jumpring attempt. A section of the ring just balled up, separating from the rest of the ring.



This makes me think I was aiming the flame (not pin point, unfortunately) NOT at the seam.

I tried fusing a jumpring four times… it finally worked the forth time.

But then I wanted to make a really fat ball-end headpin.

It’s here on the left, 14g.



I’m going to keep it as a memento… along with a bead I’ve been saving (it’s an Alex bead).




That’s it for now.

This weekend I also made a lot of jewelry out of components I’d already made or had. It’s more of my attempt to use what I have rather than buying more.

I’ll let you know when I get the listings started.

Cheers!

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