Frit on copper clay jewelry

[Suzette A]

I have just made a copper clay pendant and I would like to fire some frit in the channel on the pendant face.

The idea would be to fuse the frit on the pre-fired pendant. So its really just a copper piendant.

Any way, the frit would be bound on 3 sides by the copper and about 1 mm in depth. The is 96 coe md frit by the way.

What problems am I likely to encounter with the scheme?

My only thought, not being experienced, is the the glass might not adhere. I could try undercutting a deep channel under the bezel edge, texturing the the bezel backing etc.
Or just let the glass come lose and glue in place.

What am I missing?

Help appreciated.

[rosanna gusler]

if it was me i would buy the thompsons enamel sample pack that is made for copper. but it might work your way. try it. r.

[Barry Kaiser]

Two things to keep in mind.
1) COE You may have a problem with incompatibility with regular frit. Thompsons enamel that is for copper should overcome that.
2) Reactivity. Copper is a very reactive material and will possibly react with colors. Keep that in mind.

Barry

[Suzette A]

Im posting back to report on my experiment.
I took a pendant of previously fired copper clay and covered it with frit, roughly 2mm thick. This was 96 coe medium frit.

In any case, the frit was fairly heaped in the center with no design in mind so there were lose bits around the perimeter.

As you can imagine a stress fracture formed where the frit was thickest. But individual grains of frit at the outer edges were lovely and made little "jewels" that stuck well. I should mention that the copper clay pendant was quite heavily textured.

I put the piece in my pocket with coins and keys and let it all bang around all day. I wanted to see if the little jewels would break off.

They did not. I also dumped the pendant in sparex to see if the acid would cause any oxidation under the glass would losen and cause the glass to flake off. It did not.
In sum it seems that very small amounts of frit will adhere and play quite nicely on copper. But its not compatible with heavier coverage.

That is was a fun experiment.

[rosanna gusler]

thanks. r.

[Jenna]

Suzette, thanks for your follow-up post. It is enlightening to hear how people's experiments/explorations turn out. It really rounds out a post and adds to the forum/archive. So often the post just fizzles and no one hears the outcome. Hoping more folks also share their results. Cheers.