Gary, As others have said, you will have to make your own. The Oppi
Untracht book “Metal Techniques for Craftsmen” has four recipes that
all work well.(I prefer the “Russian Tula”[ bluish ]). He also gives
info on metal preparation and application. Niello was one of my senior
projects in college.I found many recipes for it, even one with no
lead. Please feel free to contact me offline if you can’t find the
info. I think the Untracht book may be out of print. The one thing I
never learned though, was how to pronounce the word “niello”. Is it
"knee-ay-low" or “knee-low” or “nigh-ee-low”? We had a great long
debate on this in college. How did Phillip Fike pronounce it? Mark
Thomas Ruby SunSpirit Designs Loveland, CO -where the the mountains
finally stopped burning, 30,000 acres and many homes lost.If it
hadn’t been for the rain, they would still be blazing!
Hi Mark;
Phillip pronounced it “knee-elle-oh” as it would sound to ryme with
"free-jello".
David L. Huffman
The Book “The Complete Metalsmith”, has several formulas for making
Niello, as well as an in depth description on how to make it
Silverfoot-
How did Phillip Fike pronounce it?
knee-ELL-oh
Phillip Fikes production methods are also wonderfully described in
his chapter on the subject in McCreights “Metals Technic” book.
Peter Rowe
Quik,
I wonder if you’re confusing niello with the gold gilding techniques
using mercury. Those techniques resulted in very short lifetimes for
their practicioners, as mercury is a potent, cumulative, neurotoxic
material.
While the making of niello does produce a bunch of sulphur fumes,
It’s only in that initial production of the stuff from metals and
sulphur, that you have much to worry about. After it’s made, it’s
save enough to use and apply. No worse than any other soldering
technique. While I wouldn’t want to eat it, or eat off of neillo’s
ware, due to it’s lead content, working with it isn’t especially
dangerous. I’d guess that usually one applys the stuff with, say,
handy flux, which contains fluorides. I’d be more concerned with
fumes from the flux that any problem from the neillo in application.
This is no different, by the way, than normal precautions in any
soldering operation.
Now, the actual making of the neillo material does, as mentioned,
produce lots of rather choking sulphur fumes. Pretty noxious stuff,
and you don’t want to breath much of it. But you don’t, if your
working with niello, need to make up batches of the stuff often, as
you make up enough to meet your needs for a while. And it’s not
difficult to avoid breathing the fumes produced during the mixing of
the stuff. And once mixed up, niello is stable enough, and does not
produce more sulphur fumes when applied.
Peter Rowe
Robert Von Neumann’s book “The Design and Creation of Jewelry” has
several formulas for making niello. Actually like 17 formulas.
For the one I used , bought the sulfur at the garden nursery. It is
cheap there in 10# bags. I did everything including the pulverization
of the material. It reduces to a small enough volume. It becomes
very hard to use and needs be wet packed like enamels. It is also very
difficult to remove from areas when it spills over. Perhaps there is
a no-flow material like white-out you can use to minimize the excess.
After all this I was told about a gentleman that runs the niello into
pencil lead like sticks and uses it that way. May be easier to use
that way.
Took two weeks to get the sulfur fumes out of my yellow mustache.
Every thing reeked.
Look at some of the jewelry from Siam (Sri Lanka).
Bill in Vista
Thanks again, Peter. I did not know about the gilding with mercury
technique, but have experimented with a more modern technique that is
not actually gilding in the traditional sense, done with a primer and
paint. But – I know something now that I didn’t know before about
gilding utilizing mercury. I am just beginning with this jewelry
stuff as I have been a different type of visual artist for a while.
I read all the mail on Ganoksin with interest (well, anything with a
heading that interest me, anyway 
-
there is so much!) -Quik
Excellent! I have seen McCreights book but only gave it a brief
glance. It became on of those “round-2-it” projects to aquire a
copy. David L. Huffman
I was fortunate also to learn niello from Philip Fike. I remember
the great caution the professors took because we did not make the
niello in the jewelry studio, but in the blacksmithing studio with
its very large and powerful ventilating hood. This was not just
because of the sulphur but because of the lead. When making this
alloy the lead is mixed into the molten copper and silver and is
taken far above its melting temperature. The fumes given off by lead
are indeed toxic.
Page 55 ‘Jewelry Concepts and Technology’ by Oppi Untracht:
Lead, if it enters the human body, is cumulative, and in sufficient
quantities is toxic. The most common way this occurs is by breathing
in lead fumes. Therefore, when working under high heat with
materials containing lead, provision should always be made for good
ventilation.
Barbara Gillis in beautiful Ohio where we’ve gone two whole days with
sunshine and no rain!
I want to do some black inlay work using NIELLO. Does anyone know
of a source for niello…I really don’t want to try to make it
myself.
Tom
I want to do some black inlay work using NIELLO. Does anyone know of a source for niello....I really don't want to try to make it myself.
Tom; doing a search of "Neillo " I found 4 sites… It looks to be a
Russian Art…
http://www.russianarts.com/sn3.html
http://www.russiansilver.co.uk/
http://www.utamanhotel.com/niello.html
http://www.drawrn.com/se.htm
Howdy Dallas et al, The Karl Fischer catalog shows ready to use
niello on page 201. They call it TULA. Just estimating exchange rates
it looks like 10gr. is about $5 and 100gr is about $45 before
shipping. Carl 1 Lucky Texan
Howdy Dallas et al, The Karl Fischer catalog shows ready to use niello on page 201. They call it TULA. Just estimating exchange rates it looks like 10gr. is about $5 and 100gr is about $45 before shipping. Carl 1 Lucky Texan
Do you have an address or phone # for Karl Fischer, could not find
them listed in JCK. Tom
Karl Fischer GMBH Berliner Strasse 18 D-75172 Pforzheim
Postfach 567 D-75105 Pforzheim
Fon 07231-31031 Fax 07231-310300 (why more digits than the fon?)
http://www.fischer-pforzheim.de info@fischer-pforzheim.de
I ordered Niello from Fischer a couple months ago but haven’t used
it yet. They were prompt, but there were a few hoops to jump setting
up an account.
Tom Kreyche