A grand unveiling - enamel ring #1

Hooray, this weekend has been most productive (and we still have a few hours of sunlight!). I am very happy to be able to show you the first of my enamel pieces.

I have called this ring "Full Bloom" as it is reminiscent of the big bold roses in my front garden right now.



This ring involved a bit of experimentation, and a fair bit of luck ;) I started by first constructing the ring.



In some of my enamel test pieces I found the enamel was cracking. I had a theory that this was because I was allowing it to cool too quickly. As I had not yet perfected the torch fired enamelling and was moving on to trickier pieces with solder joins I did some extra reading. A tip that I picked up was to anneal and pickel the piece at least three times, this will prevent any potential movement left in the metal and also protect the solder from running again (hopefully!).



After annealing I cleaned the inner dome with a brass brush and let it air dry, this was to prevent any oils from my fingers contaminating the surface. I 'wet packed' the flame red enamel so that I could get it to sit up the walls of the dome.



After allowing the red enamel to dry for a couple of hours I added the dry buttercup yellow enamel.



Time then to cross my fingers and fire. I am really happy with the end result, it is available now on Etsy. Keep your eyes out in the coming weeks for some new enamel pieces in a fab range of colours.