Linda, First, you mention that the project was on silver then you said
that the wires had to be placed on a flux base. If you are using
silver [or gold] wires on a silver base then the first coat of flux is
unnecessary. That is required when firing on copper to prevent the
silver wires from "alloying' into sterling where they touch the
copper. This does not happen with silver/silver or silver/gold.
Now, how to transfer the design? You will be working on the soft pure
silver base. You can transfer your design by using tracing paper with
the design applied and poking through the paper with a scribe at
strategic spots. The scribe could be a needle. These spots would
probably be points where the ends of wires meet. The points would be
quite small and would disappear under the wires or the enamel. Even a
small scratched line would be helpful to know the direction of the
wire.
If you want to use a transfer paper I would use graphite paper rather
than carbon paper. Carbon paper is greasy, graphite is cleaner. You
must do a test to be sure that the graphite burns away under any
enamel.
I place my wires directly on the silver base and attach them with
Klyrfire. You could use diluted white glue. When the whole thing is
dry I sift a very thin layer of flux over the whole thing and fire. As
the glue burns away the flux begins to fuse and then holds the wires
in place. This flux layer does not even completely cover the metal
base. Its' job is only to hold the wires.
When bending the wires, keep them in their relative position to each
other until ready to apply them to the base. At this point all the
wires would be sitting on a card or piece of paper waiting to be
applied but they would still be in the configuration of the design. It
is important that the wires be bent and cut to size as accurately as
possible. If they are off by even a smidge then they will not go
together well. This is one of the easiest ways to "lose" a design.
Orchid Rules! Karla in sunny So. California
