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Old 2014-05-24, 6:59pm
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QuiteCuntrary QuiteCuntrary is offline
Feminist Killjoy
 
Join Date: Jul 03, 2009
Location: Dreamland
Posts: 516
Default Success..sort of ;)

Well, I've read everything I could. Read the entire Tink thread, but yeah, still no definitive answers where I needed them.

After adding brightener, and more brightener, I started worrying that I might be throwing off PH in the other direction. Never did resolve it. I read that the "blue juice" must be periodically cleaned with Hydrogen Peroxide, but I'm paranoid enough about the juice, so I don't want to start dicking around with adding peroxide to it. I just ponied up for a new bottle of solution. I also got the water-based copper paint, rather than the graphite paint.

And yes, I'm using hardware store copper wire, but I'm steel-wooling it and de-greasing beforehand. Perhaps I should move to something else.

The new solution worked marvelously, and even though it started coming out dull after only a few runs, the coating it strong and only needs polishing. I suspect the E600 glue I used might have reacted to it. There were some black, rubbery areas left behind, which I initially thought was just a matter of not painting enough copper paint on, or not drying enough, but it kept happening in the same spot. Finally, I coated with clear nail polish before using the copper paint, and it was okay. Still, after that, the successive runs produced the dull color. At least it's not flaking, so it's fine by me. And I was smart enough to order 2 bottles this time, just in case.

Either way, I was able to create some bracelets that I'm absolutely overjoyed by! I'm itching to do some more, but I'm not finished setting up my torch ventilation, and the cabs I made for these were made the bad way, (pent-up glass-lust that sent me torching without proper ventilation) which I'm not going to do again.

I WILL SAY that I'm finding that I need to use thicker gauge wire on my pieces, and that can be tricky. For the bracelets, I used 16g wire, bent into a U shape, and then the U bent again into a wide hook to suspend the bracelet horizontally, which allowed for better contact, as the bracelet rested onto it.





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