Great Organizations
The Enamelist Society, Inc. Volunteer arts organization founded in 1987 to promote the art of enameling. www.enamelistsociety.org
Society of North American Goldsmiths Rekindle your passion and create new work. www.snagmetalsmith.org
Southern Highland Craft Guild Revival of crafts. www.southernhighlandguild.org
The Ganoksin Project The goal is to build a strong pool of information, freely accessible, for the benefit of the jeweler’s trade and the general public.
Florida Society of Goldsmiths A nonprofit organization created by metalsmiths to aid and support other metalsmiths through meetings, publicity, workshops, and exhibitions. fsgmetal.org
Tools and Supplies
GRS Engraving Tools and Classes www.grstools.com
New Approach School for Jewelers Jewelry School of Stone Setting = Excellent! www.newapproachschool.com
Thompson Enamels Supplier of lead-free enamels, and all the tools you need to enamel.
Schlaifer’s Enameling Supplies Carries a full line of the Thompson’s leaded enamels and some vintage enamels. www.enameling.com
E-namels Over 350 “hard to find” vintage enamel colors! Specializing in Thompson Enamel lead-based enamels.
www.e-namels.com And Scott will help you find enamels you need! Great customer service.
Enamel Art Supply is a new company taking up where Coral left off. After 40 years of bringing us Japanese enamels Coral shared so much, but now it is Mack that has opened her doors to importing enamels from Japan. And a new beautiful leaded enamel is available. Hirosaws Enamels are a new player to our game. I have tried quite a few and they are very clear! Check out the color chart on my home page or here is a link to Hirosaws Enamels https://www.enamelartsupply.com/ Now suppling Ninomiya enamels also. Mack has new style firing racks *) no more crumbling steel in your kiln. And check out nice thick foil. so thick you can texture it. Mack has added lot of needed tools for us.
Fusion Headquarters Enameling Supplies such as wet felt. In plique a jour topics several artist use this to support enamels in large cells. www.fusionheadquarters.com
Plating Services www.redskyplating.com These guys are great!
Copper Carbonate is used by an artist in the technique of Granulation and can be found at www.artchemicals.com/
Pearl Supplier if you are in need for some contact Betty Sue King The Pearl Goddess, www.pearlgoddess.com
Complete Casting Services The Best! Daniel has saved me many times. www.racecarjewelry.com
Casting in gold, silver, bronze/brass, pewter. Complete finishing services, machine, and hand polished Soldering and assembly. Enameling, Engraving by CNC machinery, CNC model is making Mold making… large selection of mold sizes for small and large castings. Call: 1-401-461-7803
Amazon is a supplier I have found recently to purchase kiln wire. I like the 17 ga best to shape into jigs to hold or prop my enamel jewels while firing. It is called High Temp Wire Very helpful to support your unusual shapes and sizes of your enamel jewels.
Kiln Wire for Kiln Enameling
Table Top Studio Great info on photographing your work. www.tabletopstudio.com
Heat Stop supplied by Gesswein www.gesswein.com this excellent clay I love to use as a support while soldering small parts. You heat it with the small pieces in place, and it turns hard.
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An artist that can help with repairs Joan Strott all types of vitreous enamel repairs. Also works with resins. 709 Sansom St, Suite 202, Philadelphia PA, 19106 * 215-625-0504 joan@glassongold.com
Mortar and Pestle
Sharing my experiences selecting a Mortar and Pestle for Enamelist
Here are three sizes of mortar and pestles I have tried. The largest one is from Thompson Enamel = 4.5″ ID. The middle size one has an ID of just under 3 “. from Siga-Aldrich. And the tiny one, super cute is 1.5 ID from no longer available.
For me The 4.5 just a little too big and heavy. Unless you are needing to grind large amounts of enamels.
o this brings me to the medium size one, fit my daily needs.
New SHIMMER enamels!
An entirely new category of enamels that open so many possibilities! After a long process of R&D by the great folks at Milton Bridge in England, these shimmer & metallic enamels are now available.
Enamel workshop.com carrying the full range of them, and they’re proving so popular that we’ve already restocked once and still some of them keep on getting sold out.
Check here for a couple of color reference tools that are very helpful for your enameling projects.
One, is a product made for films in photography. It is very simple to over lay the sheets and see how the color changes. I had an inquiry the other day on how an enamelist could darker the red that they had available. It is great to be able to keep moving when you are in the middle of an enameling project.
I can be a bit hard to tell here, the red over the blue darkens the red.
Cool little color reference tool for enameling.
See this little tool, the Deep Throat Dial Caliper. This handy little tool will help you measure the thickness of your enamel around the entire surface of your piece. It’s very important for the thickness of the counter enamel to match the thickness of the top enamels, or you run the risk of cra risk of cracking.
Available at Contenti Tools.
Making Your Own Trivets for Enameling
I am sure you have come to a point at some time, that the enameling project you have created will not fit on the standard trivets for enameling available to us. So we are pushed to be inventive, and make your own trivet for enameling.*)
You can see this is an odd shape Plique a Jour Necklace, and in the enameling process, it needs to be turned different directions. I wanted to share the trivet I made from kiln fire brick and heat tempered wire. There is ordering information under resources for the wire but you can find it on Amazon.
Another option here is a trivet for enameling that I have created for a long thin cloisonne jewel. If I were to use standard trivets the enamel jewel would warp as the side could not be supported.
The base is fire brick trivet. You can use your jeweler’s saw to cut these shapes, then a half round hand file to make a grove to place the cloisonne jewel on. The sides are supported and the back is not touching the enameling trivet. This way the counter-enamel that is required in this cloisonne jewel is just as pretty as the front. I have a fire cloth lying between the brick and the enamel so I will not have any of the firebrick dust in the enamel back. The firing cloth you can find in my shop for sell.
This week as I was enameling cufflinks and needed a way to fire both sides at once and not have the enamel touching anything the high temp wire came in handy again. This enameling trivet allowed me to achieve just what I needed.
Enameling trivets can also be a challenge when enameling in a trinket kiln. I see enameling artist searching the internet for a trivet to fit. The first image is a one inch square of stainless steel, with the corners bent up. Using a pair of needle nose pliers you can easily place this trivet in and out of a trinket kiln.
The next small simple trivet is made from the Heat Tempered Wire you can bend to your needs. This fits easily into the trinket kiln and the trivet will not disturb any of the enameling surfaces.
Happy Enameling, Patsy
Tuff Break is the name of “That Rubber Stuff” for setting enamels. Several reasons why this product is great.
One, Tuff Break adds protection to the counter while setting enamels. How you might ask, by giving the enamel piece a cushion, that rubber stuff, against the metal as you are pushing to close the bezel over the delicate enamel edge. After many firings, one needs to be gentle while setting enamels.
Second, that rubber stuff removes that clingy sound of the enamel against the metal once the piece is complete.
Many enamelist use types of glue or a piece of plastic behind the enameled piece and even sawdust in setting enamels. I feel this adds a more professional element to the cloisonné jewel.
See my setting cloisonné enamel jewels https://alohilanidesigns.com/setting-cloisonne-enamels/ and you will get a better picture what I an sharing here. I keep tuff break in stock here for you in my shop.
Mer on the buzz again!
If you have not done this before you really have to check out her enamel classes on her website enamel workshop.com & https://www.youtube.com/@enamelWorkshop is also a place where she shares 79 videos on how to Enamel. This week she has shared her exploration of pencil techniques on Enamel: beyond graphite.
Pencil on enamel: beyond graphite
Join me as I explore all options open to us when it comes to pencil techniques on enamel….
Beyond Graphite:
Any pencil created using a fire resistant pigment can be used on enamel.Graphite is actually my least favourite option!
I’ve been testing every pencil I could get my hands on. Well… as I explain and show, we don’t need to mindlessly test every pencil out there, there’s some sanity checks we can implement to set ourselves up for success. Or you can directly use my research to pick what you like best.
One sure fire option is to use underglaze pencils. These are manufactured with ceramic pigments and they’re pricy compared to other pencils, but are still by far the best option when we need a black line, as nothing else will quite do – graphite is your only other option and as I explain in the videos, I think it has limited applications.
Beyond underglaze, entire categories of artist’s pencils are superbly suitable for enamel applications.
As it so often happens, tests are a never ending source of ideas. The possibilities that you discover through them fuel creativity.
As it so often happens, tests are a never ending source of ideas. The possibilities that you discover through them fuel creativity.Testing can begin in a general way as the quick pencil tests pictured above, and from there you can begin narrowing down towards a more defined application for the materials. Here you can begin to see where this experimentation is leading me: what I like to think of as trois crayons on enamel – I link to the French version of the article as it has more examples! you can use translation or switch to the English version.
What’s Next?
I am sketching in preparation for the next video, in which I will apply what we’ve learnt together in the creation of enamel works using these techniques, I’ll record the process and share it with you 🙂
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