Adventures in Enamelling
October 17th, 2010 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalihaI bought a starter enamelling kit from the internet a few months back and over the last week or so, I’ve finally found the time to have a go at it.
I bought twelve different types of enamel powder, half opaque and half transparent plus a clear enamel and white to use as a base.
Below is my method for my first batch of firing. Sadly there are not pictures of me in my goggles and face mask to try and keep the enamel out of my lungs. Well, the instructions are covered in warnings that it contains arsenic and all sorts of unpleasant things.
Although it looks all shiny there, it is still powder form and the glare the enamel has picked up off the flash proves just how glassy it is.
Here it is in the kiln about to get melted. It was all quite exciting.
Unfortunately I got distracted by a funny bit of Family Guy and left the test peices in there for about 8 minutes. (It should only take a couple of minutes for the enamel to melt and go glossy).
And this is what happened to them. Woe and oops. As you can see I overfired them slightly and the glass has gone black. The Internet tells me that I can grind the top layer of glass off and fire again and they’ll go all glossy, but I’m going to leave them as they are as a reminder of what I did wrong.
Coming soon, my second test firing, this time with my hand torch. Will I be more successful?
I bought twelve different types of enamel powder, half opaque and half transparent plus a clear enamel and white to use as a base.
Below is my method for my first batch of firing. Sadly there are not pictures of me in my goggles and face mask to try and keep the enamel out of my lungs. Well, the instructions are covered in warnings that it contains arsenic and all sorts of unpleasant things.
Although it looks all shiny there, it is still powder form and the glare the enamel has picked up off the flash proves just how glassy it is.
Here it is in the kiln about to get melted. It was all quite exciting.
Unfortunately I got distracted by a funny bit of Family Guy and left the test peices in there for about 8 minutes. (It should only take a couple of minutes for the enamel to melt and go glossy).
And this is what happened to them. Woe and oops. As you can see I overfired them slightly and the glass has gone black. The Internet tells me that I can grind the top layer of glass off and fire again and they’ll go all glossy, but I’m going to leave them as they are as a reminder of what I did wrong.
Coming soon, my second test firing, this time with my hand torch. Will I be more successful?
