Hide glue & granulation

In April issue of Lapidary Journal there is a granulation project by
Jack & Elizabeth Gulatieri that included holding granules in place
with Klyr-Fire. It says place the “glue laden” granules in place and
that the “glue” should dry in 10-15min. Sounded like it would solve a
placement problem for me so I’ve tried it. After many hours the
Klyr-Fire is still soft. The article does not say to heat (before or
after) to dry. I don’t know if the Klyr-Fire that I bought is old or
bad or the article time is incorrect or I simple have missed a point.
If anyone has experience with this product or similar method, please
let me know.

I did see the current issue using hide glue and flux and it sounds
pretty noxious in the article.

tx,
Regis

when i use hide glue, it burns off with a protiinaceous odor, like
burning hair. some tacky smell, but not dangerous.

    I did see the current issue using hide glue and flux and it
sounds pretty noxious in the article. 

The amount of hide glue is liberally mixed with water, and isn’t
noxious at all. It holds things on well enough that they can be fired in the air.

Regis, your question about Klyr Fire This product is used in enameling to hold
down cloisonne wires, among other uses. It only dries and doesn’t
harden, you can hurry the drying along with a hair dryer under the
piece with granules; we enamelists put our piece on the top of the
hot kiln. Dried Klyr Fire will hold so well that you can fire
enamels with wires upside down. There is also a product called Blue
Stick that holds even better…available from enamel suppliers.

Donna

Rex:In my experience, Hide Glue works very well for granulation.
Use about 2 drops of Hide Glue to 10 drops of water and about 3 drops
of liquid (use an eye dropper). I have used it on all my granulation
and it never seemed noxious to me. After applying the granules with
the Hide Glue, place the whole piece on a small piece of ceramic tile
and place near or under the small kiln or even an electric light
bulb, so that it will dry off gradually. It is easiest to do this
with a small (beehive kiln). Once it is reasonably dry, place the
ceramic piece with the granulated piece on it on top of the metal cap
of the kiln. When the Hide Glue is really dry it turns brown. Once
it has turned brown, remove it from the ceramic tile and place it in
the kiln and put the cover on for a few seconds. The Hide Glue will
burn off, sometimes with brownish smoke, but very briefly.The trick
in preventing the granules from popping off is to heat the whole
piece very gradually. Then, take the cover off, and the hide glue
will have disappeared, and the granules are no longer glued to the
backsheet. Then heat with a large, bushy flame in a circular motion,
etc., until the granules are fused. Hope this helps Sandra

After many hours the Klyr-Fire is still soft. Klyr-Fire usually does
dry out faster than what you are experiencing. Try drying it under a
heatlamp suspended about 8-12" above the article. If the Klyr-Fire is
not dry in 10-15 minutes, something is wrong with it. Alana Clearlake

    I did see the current issue using hide glue and flux and it
sounds pretty noxious in the article. 

Hi Regis – I didn’t see the article, but hide glue serves two primary
purposes – one is to stabilize the pieces that you want to granulate
and the other is to provide a controlled source of carbon, which is an
important component in the technique. My training was to use flux
only in gold granulation and not in silver.

Laura.
@LWiesler

Hide glue worked well for me. Did you remember the salt?

Dean D Amick
Hamilton Jewelers

Clear Fire is mildly hydroscopic - that is to say that it will absorb
water if it is left in an “close” atmosphere (lots of water in the
air) For example here in Key west it will stay quite tacky during the
summer months when our air humidity is high but in winter will dry out
quite fast.

I usually place the piece on it’s trivet on top of the kiln to dry
out there.

Tony Konrath
Gold and Stone
www.goldandstone.com
tony@goldandstone.com

Thanks to all who helped me on this. If your formula works don’t
change but, here is how I ended up. I never got the Klyr-Fire to
work and many others do so I must accept that the new bottle I got 2
weeks ago is bad. It only dried in the kiln at pretty high temp.
Several people sent formulas for hide glue flux and water. It seems
that they all had equal parts of Batterns flux and glue and then
watered down with 3-6 times the amount of water. This worked very
well for me as it did for many of you. I’m now using the one from
Karen Christians:

	 20 drops distilled water
	 5 drops hide glue
	 5 drops Batterns flux

The smell doesn’t seem too bad. I guess if it was not diluted so
much with water, it would be worse. Thanks again,

Regis

I learned form
Jeannet Caines who doesn’t use any flux just hide glue and water for high karat gold fusing