Egyptian Paste, Part 1

These dried Egyptian Paste beads are slowly developing their
effloresced “scum” layer. Once enough has formed they will be kiln fired.

This is Part 1 of my series of blog posts about Egyptian Paste.

Egyptian Paste, also known as Egyptian Faience or Fayence, has been described as “the first high-tech ceramic”. It is a self-glazing ceramic body, which means that the glaze material/components are already included in the clay body, so there's no need for a glaze layer/coating, instead it slowly moves to the surface and develops. It is unlike ceramic clay which requires a bisque firing then a glaze layer to be painted/poured/dipped before being glazed fired to develop a glossy or matte surface.

I am forming a bead from
moist Egyptian Paste.

It is not like conventional, clay-based ceramics, the ingredients of Egyptian Paste is a mixture of silica, soda, and lime which react together during the kiln firing to create a new medium, which ends up being very different in nature to the ingredients individually. The Egyptians have referred to it as tjehenet, “that which is brilliant or scintillating”, because of how it reflects light once fired and reminded them of the semi-precious stones they admire most.

On the surface of the object an effloresced “scum” layer develops as it dries and this forms the colored glaze once it is fired due to being fused together.

The packaging has the instruction
of the first mixture we purchase
from our Pennsic Instructor.

Silica makes up the bulk of the dry ingredients, but there isn't enough soda and lime to completely melt the silica at the temperatures the dried paste is fired at, instead they react with the silica to form a little bit of glass to bind the silica grains.

Hands-On Projects
There are a wide variety of recipes and firing directions for Egyptian Paste. We started off by trying a mixture that we purchased from our Pennsic Instructor, we do not know the exact ingredients, the firing instructions are on the back of the packaging (see 3rd photo; from the "Getting Started" Facebook Photo Album).

After we made and used up this mixture we looked online for a recipe and ordered the needed ingredients which arrived very quickly. I mixed 1.185 kilograms (1185 grams) or 2.612 pounds of the dry base fore Egyptian Paste that it the plain color. I divided it into 11 batches of 100 grams each of the basic dry ingredients and then added different amounts of colorant to each. The remaining amount, just under 85 grams, will remain uncolored for plain beads and to experiment with. (see 4th photo; from the "Group Project" Facebook Photo Album).

Our group project day making beads
from the 2nd recipe that we tried.

Distilled water still needs to be added to each mini pouch of dry ingredients and kneaded well to form into balls of paste that are a little 'clay' like. The ingredients were purchased from The Ceramic Shop]


For more information and a look at my photo tutorials please visit:

Getting Started: Egyptian Paste (a.k.a. Egyptian Faience)

Group Project: Egyptian Paste (a.k.a. Egyptian Faience)

Late Anglo-Saxon Disk-Brooches. Part 2 (Enamel)

This is Part 2 of my series of blog posts about my Late Anglo-Saxon Disk-Brooch Project. In this part of the series I talk about my reasons for experimenting with Flameworking glass rods and turning them into a fine powder which can be used as Enamel.


Part 1 is a general history of the disk-brooches that my research and fabrication project centers around.

I purchased several end bits of Lampworking glass rods, which are used in bead making, in several of the colors used in Anglo-Saxon glass beads, in order to make my own vitreous enamel. Full, new rods aren't necessary since I will be crushing them. I also like the idea of recycling in this way, something I'm certain was done in period.

I only needed the end bits since I will using the technique discussed by Theophilus in, "On Divers Arts" to make my own vitreous enamel. Using thermal shock I will shatter them into smaller pieces, then crush them with a pestle with some distilled water, to reduce the dust in the air and as a bit of a lubrication, until they are finely ground. I will be wearing a good quality 3M respirator for fine particles and eye protection.

The bottom, horizontal rod is Marshmallow white which is the only full rod that I purchased that day. I have a couple dozen rods I purchased at previous EK Metalsmiths' Symposiums for making Viking Age beads, some of those rods might be the needed colors.

The dark looking rods between the white and turquoise, as well in the second picture, is actually a transparent, dark blue which is lovely.

I've been researching the sources for Anglo-Saxons enamel and so far it seems to be the same glass used for Anglo-Saxon beads. I will be writing a separate Blog entry about this section of my research.

I will also be using Thompson's lead-free enamels on several of the Anglo-Saxon brooches, though I will not mix these  on the same piece with the enamel I will make. The glass rods have a CoE* of 104 and the Thompson lead-free enamels have different CoEs depending on which series they are from.

* CoE = "Coeffecient of Expansion"

Many thanks to the discussion and helpful information from Mistress Elysabeth Underhill, O.L. during EK Metalsmiths' Symposium 17 (MSS) this month. She was generous with her time to help pull out these color rods from a large container of them to aid me in my project. I greatly appreciate it.


Links:
Late Anglo-Saxon Disk-Brooches, Part 1

My Facebook Photo Album of this project