Thursday Tip

Welcome to the latest in a series of articles to do with enamelling and making jewellery. I hope you find them useful. I am writing about issues and problems I have experienced (and hopefully overcome), and tips and shortcuts concerning enamelling and making jewellery that I have come across in the course of the past twenty years or so. As I always tell my students, I have made most of the mistakes possible over the years. I am trying to share what I have learnt so that you don’t have to! Today I am sharing some tips concerning Cloisonné enamel on Fine Silver.

Firing Cloisonné Wires into Place

These earring are on fine silver blanks from Cooksons. Normally I use Soyer silver Flux SOJE3 as a base coat. In this case, because I wanted to use pink, I decided to use Soyer Grey Blue SOJE 13. I fired a very thin layer and then placed fine silver wires on it and fired them into place. The pink is KJE 166a Deep Pink. Each firing was for 1 minute at 890 degrees centigrade. I used my PRO 1 kiln which appeared to fire very accurately. Firing the pale blue under the pink enhanced the colour, and helped build up a depth of colour in a very shallow recess. Next I added underglaze centres to the foils and gold foils. I finished with two separate layers of Blythes Medium Flux. The surface was finished with fine Diagrit and then finally 600 grit and then 1200 grit wet and dry. I hope this will help you try some cloisonné enamel. Let me know how you get on. I would love to see your results.