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.
Hi Patsy
This is a great resource. Thank you for being so generous with your knowledge.
I’m a beginner and have enjoyed ‘playing’ thus far on my journey. I don’t have access to any courses or teachers (I live in the Middle East) and something that I’m finding quite difficult to get my head around is the thickness of metal to enamel.
I’d like to do Champleve pieces max 5cm square and if possible, no counter enamel. If I’m reading your notes above correctly, you’ve had success with 16g (1.2mm) metal and 1mm of enamel. I’ve tried this and the piece warps (could be beginner’s mistakes!). Do you think that the 5cm square piece is too big for the 1.2mm : 1mm ratio (metal to enamel)? Is there an ‘optimal’ ratio?
Sorry for the specific questions! I know this is an art, but I’d like to know the ‘specifics’!
Many thanks again
Kim
Hi Kim, thanks for the visit.
The page you are on says it can be 16 ga and one layer of enamel, which is maybe .25 mm space for enamel. If you are adding more enamel than that, like I did on the “Dragon” bracelet on the home page that is closer to 14 ga. I used the metal thickness of 1.75 It gave me a floor thickness of 1mm and enamel space of .70mm and room to sand do the top for a nice flush finish.
Yes 1.2 mm sheet with 1mm of enamel will warp and crack without counter. *)
Keep trying and keep me posted how it works out! Patsy