Different kinds of silver.

You do not see often pure silver for trade.
Most of the times some copper is added to the silver to give it some strength.
Pure silver is soft and easy to bend.
Depending the part of copper added to the silver it will get an classification.
The higher the amount of silver, the higher the classification.
There a 3 well known classifications.

• 2e grade silver 825/1000
• 1e grade silver 925/1000 (As known as Sterling silver)
• Fine silver 999/1000

Suitability to enamel.

All these grades of silver are suitable to on enamel.
Fine silver is ready to on enamel without any preparations.
The second and first grades silver needs a treatment before you are able to on enamel it.
While enameling the second and first grade of silver, then the copper in the silver will polluting the transparent enamel.
It will make the transparent hazy.
So enameling on silver with transparent enamels, you must prepare the first and second grade silver.

So depending of the jewelry you want to make you have to make a choice which kind of silver you can use.
Needs it to be strong, then you must use second or first grade silver.
If strength is not the case, then you can use pure silver..

Annealing the silver to use with transparent enamel.

Because silver is very suitable to use with transparent enamels you have to anneal it.
Purpose for this is to get a very thin layer of pure silver at the surface.
This can be achieved by the annealing process.

How to anneal the silver.

Shove the silver in to an kiln with a temperature of 650 ° Celsius for 2 till 4 minutes.
Get it out and let it cool down.
You will see a gray haze on the silver.
This is the copper coming to the surface.
Sand it with waterproof sandpaper of 1200 and some soft soap till the gray scale is removed and the silver is shiny again.
Heat it again in the kiln.
And sand the silver again.
Keep repeating this process.
Every time the gray haze will be lesser.
When there is no gray haze anymore, then repeat it twice times more.
The whole process can be exist from 5 to 15 times.
When you are done, the silver is ready to enamel with transparent enamels.

Transparent enamels.

I described earlier that all enamels powders are different from composition
Sometimes a kind of powder needs only 1 layer to be perfect and another needs more than 1.
Sometimes a enamel powder needs an under layer of pure transparent (clear/fondant) to be beautiful.
Sometimes the chemicals in the powder reacting on the pure silver and needs a transparent clear under layer.
Sometimes, sometimes... Yes, there is a lot to discover.
Every enamel powder and every brand of enamel powder acting different.
You will have to discover it yourself.
However, When you have a bright and shiny jewel in your hands, then the glory is great!!!.
Then you can say.
HANDMADE BY !!!???

1 St annealing

Clean with a toothbrush and soft soap

The silver after annealing, you can see at the rim the copper after the complete annealing process.
Now there is a pure silver layer on top of the surface

Here the shiny silver out of the kiln.
No gray haze.
Ready to enamel.

Ready to wear !

Testing transparent enamels.

To learn all the different behaviors with transparent enamels and silver it is better to do a lot of test.
If you use fine silver foil then you can test and not loose to much money.
If you have discovered all the different kinds of behavior of the transparent enamels, then it is safe to step over to the silver objects.

Silver figures

There are silver figures available to buy, however is it a very small assortment.
You will have to make your own designs
This is another side of this great hobby and I will write more about that in the future.
So stay tuned.