Cloisonné on a flat piece of Copper

Details: Parent Category: Technical Articles from Journal Back Copies; Category: Technical Articles 2001

Clean the copper piece as you would for any other enamelling. Any fabrication or riveting must be done before you begin to enamel.
Cover the copper with a coat of hard flux and fire.
Counter-enamel the piece. Having glass on both sides makes a piece more stable. With cloisonné you need equal amounts of enamel on both sides of the piece. This will keep it from warping.
Cover the fluxed side of the piece with silver foil and fire it. By covering it with silver foil you keep the silver wires from collapsing into the copper. If silver wires touch the copper they alloy, but with the foil between the alloying does not happen.
Cover the silver foil with silver flux and fire.
Glue the shaped wires to the silver side. Dip them in 'Klyrfire', 'Bluestick' or Japanese lily root powder - what ever you use to keep the wires from moving when they are put into the kiln.
Fire it so that the wires sink into the enamel.

You are now ready to add colour to your piece.