I have a couple of questions....

1) what is the purpose of washing the enamel? Do you have to wash it? Can't you just use it ouf of the jar?

2) Is the correct enamel to use numbered in the 2000 range at Thompson?

3) When you say, "stacks of clean paper" what do you mean? I used paper towels and it was an awful mess and some of the enamel seemed to soak in to the paper towel.

I bought some enamel this weekend from my LBS and ran home to try the necklace. I washed only one of the colors of enamel...what a mess. I used paper towels and it was a big gloppy mess that seemed to soak into the towel.
The next morning it was finally dry and i followed all the steps. The balls on the end of the wire never turned a color....most of them stayed a gray color. I am thinking that the enamel i bought at the bead store was not the proper enamel. The numbers on the enamel from the store were in the 9000 range.

Please help and let me know what I did wrong.

I can't wait to try this myself. Just placed an order with thompson enamels.

1) Not sure but they say to do it.... .
2) I would say the 1000 or 2000. I think it just depends if you want opaque or clear colors. As long as you make sure it is medium temperature and medium expansion.
3) Paper I would think to mean Paper as in regular white paper. Not paper towels.

More than likely it seems the enamel you bought from your LBS is used for lampwork beads? the numbers on the thompson website for lampwork enamels were in the 9000 range.

Make sure you follow the instructions step by step including the klyr-fire and the clear enamel.

Good Luck! Hope to try mine next week.

Now my question... The glass vials from sciplus.com... I can not seem to find them on thier website. Is there a perticular order # for them? they would be great for a variety of projects not just this one.

Thanx, ~Wendy

I can't find my issue and want to order the correct size wire for this project. I have looked everywere and it is making me NUTS!! Can someone tell me what gauge?

Hi tekaandzoe,

The project calls for 18-gauge round, dead-soft fine silver wire to make the dangles.

Katie Streeter
Art Jewelry