carrot ring and green bracelet

I started putting my enameled bracelet together yesterday. It's going ok now, but started out pretty badly. I have several more rows of pieces to put on it. I also have to fabricate the catch.


I also worked on my carrot ring. I'm removing the orange enamel. I decided to heat it and quench it to break off the enamel. I did that several times.


It's interesting that when you do that the enamel keeps cracking and chipping off for several minutes after it has cooled.


There's still some enamel on it, I guess I will have to grind the rest of it off.

carrot ring pt. 2

I enameled the rest of my carrot ring last week. I was pretty much finished when I decided I hated the color, the orange is too brown. So I am going to grind off that enamel and redo it with a very orange opaque enamel. I wanted to use transparent enamels, but I can't find a good transparent orange, and I don't think using transparent orange on that part of the ring is as important as using transparent green on the top where I have all the detailed carving. It's a pain in the ass to grind off all the enamel, but what's the point in making the ring if it's going to suck?

carrot ring

I finished up the wax for this ring and cast it a few weeks ago. I carved it at least 5 years ago, but never got around to totally finishing it. I am half finished enameling it. I will make the rest of it transparent orange.

more enameling

I enameled my other little cup last week. I put on 3 or 4 coats of enamel.

This is what the enamel looks like before firing:


I used a Smith air/acetylene torch with a #3 tip. I think a #4 tip would have been better because it was taking some time to get all the enamel to melt, but I didn't have one at the time. I got one later in the week when I ordered some things from Rio.


Finished pieces:


These are some bracelet parts I started on last week while I was waiting to cast more scales for my necklace. This piece, along with everything else I have been working on, has been put on hold till I finish my necklace.

more enamel tests

Friday I got a couple more enamels and some enamel adhesive. The adhesive is for getting the powdered enamel to stay on curved or vertical surfaces before it's fired.

I did some more enamel tests last night. The piece below is a little copper cup I keep my punches and repousse tools in. It started out as something quick I made in 2005 to practice raising. Later I gold leafed it to practice applying gold leaf. I never liked the gold leaf on it very much, so last night I decided to sand it off and practice enameling it.

It's torch fired. I built up 3 layers of enamel, firing it after each layer. I fired the last layer twice because I didn't think it was fused well enough. I am mostly satisfied with the way it turned out. I heated it from the inside, except at the very end I passed the torch over the outside directly on the enamel. That darkened the enamel slightly, making it look kind of dirty. I shouldn't have done that, but that's the purpose of doing a practice piece, now I know not to do that on light colored enamels.

This went pretty smoothly. My previous experience with enamels wasn't very good. I remember having trouble with the enamel cracking off. That was part of the reason I never did any enameled work. I was really interested in enameling in the early 2000's, but I didn't know anything about it, and I thought you needed to use a kiln, which I didn't have. By the time I got to try enameling in 2005 I was no longer interested in it. I did my required sample pieces for a class, which didn't go very well, and decided enameling was not something I wanted to do. I am interested in enameling now because I am getting a little sick of anodized aluminum, but I still want to use colors, and I like the textures.


I'll probably practice enameling more on another raised cup I keep small tools in later this week. Practice pieces are more fun when its something you will keep and use.

enameling

I got some vitreous enamels last week for a certain piece I have had in the back of my mind for several years. I got the little sample kit from Rio Grande and a couple bigger jars. I have never done any enameled pieces, except for test pieces in grad school, which was a requirement for a class I was taking. Since I have never really done any enameling I also got the book The Art of Enameling: Techniques, Projects, Inspiration by Linda Darty. It seems to be a good book so far. I bought it on Amazon without having looked through it, I almost didn't get it because it has projects, but there's not much space devoted to them.



So far I am just doing test pieces. I like the rough granular texture from underfired enamel, what the enameling book calls sugar fired. That is my main interest in enameling. I am just as interested in the textures as I am the colors.