[Fuad]

Hey everyone - long time lurker, first time poster.

Such a wealth of knowledge on these forums that whenever I google any ceramic/glaze questions I have always been directed here. I look forward to learning and sharing ideas with all of you.

I am part of a team that creates porcelain art jewelry. We work with Cone 6 Porcelain combined with several types of glazing and over glaze techniques and have been having some good success in the last few years.

So here are my questions:

1. Has anyone made a solid porcelain or ceramic bangle with success? I know they exist because I have seen them online

I guess I should also be more clear that I can make the actual bangle, but I cannot figure out a way to glaze the entire piece. Pin supports would leave marks in the glaze and possibly scratch clothing. I can string it along some nichrome wire, but I would still have to leave a portion unglazed for the wire to rest on.

Really stuck on this one...

2. Is there a way to fire CZ's, gemstones into porcelain. I like the idea of melted gemstones (if that happens to them).

Thanks!

[Chris Campbell]

I had an acquaintance who tried porcelain bangles but they were a hard sell because women worried about chipping and breaking them. She had a bit better luck with rings, and much better luck with earings. To glaze the whole thing you suspend it on the wires and lightly sand rough spots after firing.

[Fuad]

thanks chris,

we have a devoted following that believe "You are wearing a piece of Art, treat it as such." Most of our clients know what they are getting into when wearing porcelain jewelry and wear them well. That being said - I've seen so many porcelain bangles around lately that they must be stronger than ppl think they are.

though we do have breakages from time to time, most of our pieces are pretty tough and have landed on concrete, tile floors and gone through washers and dryers with no issues. We use a cone 6 porcelain that we fire to cone 7... it gets super tough that way.

Chris Campbell, on 14 May 2012 - 10:39 PM, said:

I had an acquaintance who tried porcelain bangles but they were a hard sell because women worried about chipping and breaking them. She had a bit better luck with rings, and much better luck with earings. To glaze the whole thing you suspend it on the wires and lightly sand rough spots after firing.

[icyone]

I've been thinking about this too. The only way I envisioned it is to use stilts with bangle laid on side and keep the stilt points sharpened so it leaves very minimum stilt marks as I'm able to grind some stilt marks with a very fine dremmel bit and sort of buff out the very light rough mark with polishing compound and a small buffing wheel also for the dremmel.

[Fuad]

http://www.newtownfi...Tree_Robin.html

look at the bangles on this site.. they really are nice and look like they've been glazed all over...

they are too thin to use stilts on.. im thinking they maybe keep one edge of it unglazed and fire it on that side?

icyone, on 17 May 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

I've been thinking about this too. The only way I envisioned it is to use stilts with bangle laid on side and keep the stilt points sharpened so it leaves very minimum stilt marks as I'm able to grind some stilt marks with a very fine dremmel bit and sort of buff out the very light rough mark with polishing compound and a small buffing wheel also for the dremmel.

[INYA]

I thought of something quite similar and have already made the molds... I think I will leave 3 spots unglazed on one side and cast another piece to rest the bangle on it.

[trina]

INYA, on 18 May 2012 - 02:59 AM, said:

I thought of something quite similar and have already made the molds... I think I will leave 3 spots unglazed on one side and cast another piece to rest the bangle on it.

Hi there,

I looks to me like these were fired on a tree type stand that has right angle prongs coming out of it, so that only a small point on the inside of the bangle is affected. T

[Diana Ferreira]

Those look like unglazed porcelain, just polished/sanded when in bisque, and transfers applied to it.

[Diana Ferreira]

ugh, and according to this, made in China ... http://www.made-in-c...raderoom/rmk259

[Amy Waller]

You could also leave the inside of the bangle unglazed and hang the bangle on wire.

For a little inspiration, check out this Egyptian faience bangle from the Smithsonian. (Fired a lot lower than porcelain but has survived for thousands of years.)

[icyone]

INYA, on 18 May 2012 - 02:59 AM, said:

I thought of something quite similar and have already made the molds... I think I will leave 3 spots unglazed on one side and cast another piece to rest the bangle on it.

That is a great idea

[Mark C.]

I was following this till the Robin tree link was all outsourced to china-

I'll set that aside and agree that it can be done with few wire points ground down and smoothed over.Those marks can be on the inside or an edge or on the outside.
Mark

[Marcia Selsor]

would a tie of heavy duty bead rack work. Not sure how heavy you're talking about. Some rods for bead racks are very hefty.
Marcia

[INYA]

Rethinking this made me remember all my (not so great) experiences with porcelain

I think with porcelain I would leave a whole margin unglazed and rest it on a normal shelf- I think it wouldn`t be ok if the bangle rested just on three points, it might lower in unsupported parts.
what do you think?

[Diana Ferreira]

Inya, I think that the bangle will shrink so much in the glaze firing, that it might fall off the supports. I would rather go for a very thin layer of glaze, rubbed off on both sides of the bangle, so that it looks like it has to be like that. or, just leave it unglazed. Sand with wet paper after a bisque firing and again after the 'glaze' firing. and add transfers.

[lynny]

 IMG_0143.jpg (340.6K)
Number of downloads: 64  IMG_0095.jpg (209.24K)
Number of downloads: 81Hi all,
I havnt posted here since last year, but am still an avid reader of this great forum.
I make a range of jewellery and had to do lots of testing to get results that I'm happy with.
The coloured texture stamps bracelets are glazed all over and final fired on 3 pronged sitters.
The coloured porcelain is very much trickier. If I glazed all over and hung from a wire support, they stretched out of round.
So I now wet polish the interior, so they feel great against the skin- some I also polish the outside and leave unglazed.
But others I clear glaze on the exterior and fire them laying on the rim with some calcined alumina on the shelf.
The rings took me a long time to get a solution. The ones in this image are glazed all over and are sitting in little clay mounts I made for them and re-use.
You can see I use calcined alumina here to, and because its such a small surface a light wet polish after firing smooths this surface well.
Hope the images help  IMG_0091.jpg (236.15K)
Number of downloads: 70

[Diana Ferreira]

Beautiful, Lynny! Thank you for sharing.

[Matt Oz]

With porcelain, has anyone tried a high fire bisque, than lower fire glaze. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about shrinkage, and have more support options for the glaze fire.

I don't know about glaze fit though.

[Fuad]

hey matt,

i depends on the finished we are going for. requires a bit of forethought and planning.

since it's jewelry, we don't worry so much with glaze fit because no one is eating off of it - lol.

We sometimes do a low fire bisque and then use high fire glazes on them (if that's the look we want)

And sometimes we do a high fire bisque with the high fire glaze and the piece is ready of overglaze work.

Sometimes we do a high fire bisque and then apply low fire glazes. I find clear (gloss and matte/satin) non crackle glazes get crackle textures which i bring out with ink sometimes. some other glazes (ex amaco's luster glazes) never have any problems with cracks.

But I have rarely had problems with shrinkage, warping during the firing process

Matt Oz, on 20 May 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

With porcelain, has anyone tried a high fire bisque, than lower fire glaze. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about shrinkage, and have more support options for the glaze fire.

I don't know about glaze fit though.

[Fuad]

beautiful work lynny!

I have thought about leaving the inside unglazed - i am not very experienced with wet sanding. I did it once and it was so time consuming and i felt like i couldnt breath properly for a few days after (I had all the precautions - gloves, eye glasses, respirator).

And my time in doing this would certainly drive up the price.

Does wet sanding actually give it a good seal and make it non porous? Meaning, I don't want customers complaining later on that the inside of the cuff got stained from dirt/makeup etc.

aw dammit.. i'm just gonna use acrylics... hahaha *JOKE*

lynny, on 20 May 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

IMG_0143.jpg IMG_0095.jpgHi all,
I havnt posted here since last year, but am still an avid reader of this great forum.
I make a range of jewellery and had to do lots of testing to get results that I'm happy with.
The coloured texture stamps bracelets are glazed all over and final fired on 3 pronged sitters.
The coloured porcelain is very much trickier. If I glazed all over and hung from a wire support, they stretched out of round.
So I now wet polish the interior, so they feel great against the skin- some I also polish the outside and leave unglazed.
But others I clear glaze on the exterior and fire them laying on the rim with some calcined alumina on the shelf.
The rings took me a long time to get a solution. The ones in this image are glazed all over and are sitting in little clay mounts I made for them and re-use.
You can see I use calcined alumina here to, and because its such a small surface a light wet polish after firing smooths this surface well.
Hope the images help IMG_0091.jpg