Fusing works fine with sterling, you just have to be aware of the probability of firestain.
Fusing works fine with sterling, you just have to be aware of the probability of firestain.
Well 2nd attempt at doing a piece with fusing and reticulation. This time I used a piece of 1 mm thick sterling. I did the process of heating and pickling 4 times until the silver was white after pickling. When it was ready for reticulation I added the pieces I wanted to fuse. I heated the piece, the pieces fused, but except for a bit of melting around the corners and burning a small hole the piece never textured. The strange part is the reverse side does have a nice texture. I don't understand what went wrong? I'm wondering if 1mm was too thick? After the first reticulation attempt and pickling the piece I decided to try heating again to see if I could bring out the texture. All it did was make the hole get a little bigger and the edges a bit rougher, but still no texture. I doubt I will waste another piece of lovely silver on this technique anytime soon.
The first sample I did was .6 mm thick and textured nicely. It was really quite exciting watching the textures form, that is until I burned a huge hole right in the middle.
Last edited by Sandra; 10-11-2013 at 11:09 PM.
Well Emma, you've got it out of your system, for now at least and so did I many years back.
But I am not destructive by nature, so when I see a finished piece, that has had the hell heated out of it and is the result of a series of accidents, I can only think of the care that went into producing a rolled and perfect sheet in the first place.
As for what went 'wrong', I think with the thicker/larger sheet your torch was too small to heat the silver underlying the surface sufficiently.
Regards, Dennis.
Last edited by Dennis; 11-11-2013 at 05:49 AM.
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