Plique a Jour Experiment with Titanium

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hi all,

I put up a new post on my blog for all the enamelers.
I wanted to investigate the properties of glass to titanium.

Plique a Jour Experiment with Titanium.

Check out
http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep7zk9

Hans Meevis

…

bloggers!

http://ganoksin.com/blog

If you have been considering your own Blog, but haven’t yet, the

2

Hans

What titanium alloy did you use?
What enamels did you use?

The different titanium alloys can be treated to have different
surface textures. This may lead to different results.

The different COE of the glass may also have an effect as may the
size of the cells.

Interesting project.

Do you typically do a last fire under vacuum, or did I misunderstand
the non use of the Hicksville (been there) kiln?

Thanks
Charles Friedman DDS

By the way I have enjoyed your website and your unusual projects!

3

Hi Charles,

What titanium alloy did you use? What enamels did you use?

I don’t actually know what alloy it is, because I bought a scrap
pile of the stuff, from a pipe and boiler manufacturer. I use Thompson
enamels

I did a further post concerning plique-a-jour on my blog.

http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep7zlu

4 
http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep7zlu

Awesome experiment :slight_smile: CIA

5

Something else to think about regarding your titanium experiment.
Plating with copper seems like a good idea but there’s copper and
there’s copper.

I tried copper plating on a damaged champleve piece that I was
trying to restore. The base piece was copper and I thought I could
build up some of the dings / scratches and re-enamel. My first
problem was that plating loves edges and doesn’t realize that I
would prefer it to deposit vertically, not up and over, softening
the strong design lines.

OK, that one I had to live with. With some sanding I was able to
bring the surface back to the original plane and did, in fact, have
a better surface to work with minus some of the original damage.

Fill the cells with enamel…fire…looks promising. But,
in sanding the piece back to level I had some of the plated sections
peel off. Since it was a copper to copper bond then obviously
something else was going on. In addition to the peeled sections I
was getting a halo of air bubbles in the enamel around the design
elements…"&%$&*^%#$"

I realize the amount electrical current has a lot to do with buildup
of metal. The plating was done commercially and I have been working
with this guy for years. He treats my pieces carefully. Also, there
is a lot of copper wire sitting around the shop. A piece with metal
buildup, when bent, actually cracks. It does not have the nice bend
one would expect from wire. The plated layer breaks where it meets
the base wire.

All this is telling me that the bond between plated and base metal
is not as strong and there must be poriosity [shown by the air
bubbles around the design elements caused by expansion in the heat
then trapped in the enamel].

In your experiment you’ve added the titanium. To me it wasn’t a
surprise that the enamel released around the edges.

Keep up the good work Mr. Wizard…love to learn from your
experiments.

Karla Maxwell from blue skies, So. California