Hi Mary
There are a lot of threads on fuming. I have learned most of what I know about fuming from them. Here is what I do. Ventilation is key. It sounds like you have good venting so it should not be a problem. I do wear a respirator in the first stage of fuming. I bought a good and relatively inexpensive one ($15.00 ) at Amazon. You can fume on tubes and rod of glass. I guess the first thing you need is the silver and gold. I get mine from ABR in IN.. There is an ABR in Az, but I would guess that whoever you deal with will have them. As of 8-20, ABR lists gold at $89.00 a gram. You WILL be disappointed at what a gram looks like. Never fear, you can make hundreds of pendants with a gram. Same with the silver. I also bought a quartz rod to hold the metals. You have to heat the hell out of the quartz to make an indentation. A lot of people think that a boro rod works just as well, but I like the quartz because it will never melt over the metal. To each his own. After you make an indentation, heat the rod and place a small piece of gold in the indention and carefully put it just under the flame. The gold will ball up. Keep the rod in an upright position or the gold ball just might roll off the rod and then you will have a very expensive gold splash right in front of your torch.
I then turn over the rod and repeat the process with the silver.
Now that you have your gold/ silver rod prepped, you can get started.
Easy start: Make a maria, and indent it with a frog or a vin pin (I think I saw that you have one).
Put on your respirator. To fume gold use an oxidizing flame. Hold the Maria in one hand and position it near the end of your flame angled inward. Bring the gold up under your flame about 3" from the base of your torch. As you heat the gold, make sure it does not angle down. if you angle it down, you may watch it roll right off the rod(Splash!@#$%^%$).
As the gold heats it will begin to throw off the fume. Rotate your maria to pick up the gold on the glass. How much you fume is up to you. For me it is a trial and many error process. When you are satisfied with the amount of gold on your maria, pull the gold rod out of the flame, keeping it upright until it cools down (about 10'). Now you can start filling in the indents from the frog with clear glass. Reduce your flame to neutral and add dots of clear over the indent holes. At that point, work the maria like any pendant. The gold that is not covered by clear will burn off. When the gold is only on your indent points, it's OK to take your respirator off. Work the pendant and put a back and bale on it. For most of my pendants, I use a black back, but Cobalt looks nice too.
To fume silver, use a reducing flame.
You can fume both on the same pendant. I usually start with gold, and switch to silver last.
Fuming with gold only will give a strong gold color.
Fuming with silver will give a white look.
Fuming with both gives a wide range of colors greens, blues, golds, whites.
Adding white to gold fumed maria's will look pink.
Here are some examples:
1st gold only,
2nd silver (mostly)
3rd a mix of gold and silver (this is my favorite pendant)
If you have questions about my directions, or if anyone else has suggestions, please add them.
Dave
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