Liquid Enamel

Liquid enamel is something new to me. I started using it after doing the Minakari research, since all the books said that the base white coat of enamel was dipped, not sifted. I tried BC-1070 White first – and though it had some very interesting organic textures – it took at least three coats to get a nice smooth surface. Then I tried 533 White – and it was perfect. If I got the right consistency (just a matter of practice) I could dip once and get a perfect smooth clean white coat. But I was also intrigued with some of the organic crackling that happened with the 1070, so I decided to try some other colours. It’s really a lot of fun to experiment – different thicknesses, different liquidity and different temperatures all give different result.

All of these samples were a fairly thin coat fired about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes at around 1400F. The Goldenrod was my favourite. When it came out of the kiln with the metal glowing red through the cracks it was spectacular!

CLICK ON INDIVIDUAL COLOURS TO GET A CLOSE-UP

: 1070 White

: 533 White

: BC 303L Flux

: BC-969A flux

: 772 Black

: 791 Hunter Green

: 770 Princeton Orange

: 937 COral

: 930 Chinese Red

: 930 Chinese Red detail

: 771 Flame Red

: 769 Goldenrod

: 769 Goldenrod – fired hotter

: 799 Sky Blue

: 767 Peacock Blue

These are the same colours with a second coat. These were fired for 2 minutes at 1450F. As you can see the colours are more developed, but some are still resisting the typical smooth finish of enamel.