I got three of these accepted into the Royal Miniature Societies Exhibition this year at the Mall Galleries, London. I can't believe it! I didn't quite manage to get the chance to become an Associate Member of the Royal Miniature Society - if only I'd got the other two accepted....
Author archives: mark
Three were accepted!
Gloucester Cathedral Girl Chorister Medals
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Chorister Medals,
Commissions,
Cloisonné,
Engraving.
Here are the finished pair of chorister medals for the head and deputy head girl choristers at Gloucester Cathedral. The left-hand one depicts St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, and the right-hand one depicts St. Kyneburgha, who founded Burh Abbey.
Initial designs for the chorister medals
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Chorister Medals,
Commissions,
Cloisonné.
After some time the customer and I came up with these designs for the medals. The actual construction of the medals was still a bit unkown at this stage. The customer wanted something that would be robust but yet elagant. My initial thoughts were to adapt the watch case I'd made before.
All five were accepted!
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Miniature Enamel Painting,
Exhibitions.
I got all five entries accepted into the Royal Miniature Society Exhibition! Very pleased indeed! I think I've got to start planning now to do the same for next year!
Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers entries for 2018 exhibition
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Enamelling,
Miniature Enamel Painting,
Exhibitions.
Here are my entries for the 2018 Royal Miniature Society exhibition. I've been busy with all manner of different things so I've just not managed to enter anything since 2013. Hopefully I'll get these five through the selection process!
Making a bespoke trivet
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Elliptical Enamel Plaques,
Machining and gcode.
I need to support the ellipses properly. I've tried improvising with the trivets I've already got but it's not working so I need to do something a bit better.
Enamelling the Elliptical Steel Plaques
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Elliptical Enamel Plaques,
Enamelling,
Enamel on Steel.
Preparing the Steel Ellipses
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Elliptical Enamel Plaques,
Enamel on Steel,
Metal preparation.
Now I've done a bit of testing, I'm a lot happier and more comfortable with what I've got to do. The test rectangles showed there was a small improvement with rounding the edges so I decided to do that.
Spraying the test pieces with white opaque enamel
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Elliptical Enamel Plaques,
Enamel on Steel,
Enamel Tests.
After the ground-coat it's time for the white opaque enamel. It's pretty much the same process as for the ground-coat.
Spraying the test pieces with ground-coat
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Elliptical Enamel Plaques,
Enamel on Steel.
Yes!! Time to get enamelling!
In order to successfully enamel steel, it needs a layer called ground-coat (sometimes called grip-coat or base-coat) to form an interface between the steel and the enamel. The ground-coat contains adhesion agents that promote redox reactions with the iron and carbon, found in steel, at the high temperatures involved when firing the enamel. A thin coat is required and then the opaque white enamel can go on top.