Using the first tutorial I found, I mixed my first enamel powder color choice with distilled water (50/50 ratio) and filled in the top of my first penny.......a penny I hadn't drilled. The tutorial said to let the enamel and water mixture dry but I did not have the patience to let it dry, so I fired away. I was a little tentative with the torch at first, but wisely started out making some copper head pins which relaxed my fears a little. After the first penny was fired, I let it cool in a fiber blanket. Once it cooled down, I was thrilled with the color and look of it and couldn't wait to do more.
Head Pins
Faced with the 14 bags of assorted colors, I couldn't wait to try more colors. Using a screen from a faucet (I absolutely have to get a small hand held sifter) I sifted the colors directly onto the cleaned pennies - and did layers of colors.
Turquoise enamel powder
Base of opaque orange with a layer of red on top
A layer of golden brown with a layer of turquoise on top
Golden brown with a sifting of my run-off waste
Just to prove that I really used pennies!!
A couple of great, informative articles/tutorials on how to torch fire enamel:
5 kind souls said::
thank you for the article, the colors are beautiful and what a great use for all those pennies I have in a jar. I'm inspired
Thank you! Just don't forget when you are choosing your pennies you can only use those that were minted previous to 1981 - the newer ones are more zinc than they are copper and they will melt when you try to torch fire them. And HAVE FUN!!!!
Not to mention torching Zinc can make you feel really funky.
What a wonderful idea - thanks for sharing. I just started torch enameling, and I find one of the big expenses is the copper pieces - this is a great and inexpensive way to get round discs without punching and filing too! Another reason to start saving my pennies!
I really enjoyed this idea - thank you for sharing. I am hoping to start learning how to torch enamel and this is yet another way to use it!
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