Pigeon Point Glass - Electroforming Instructions

Electroforming Tutorial

It's sometimes difficult to find information about electroforming small objects (in particular glass sculpture and beads). I thought I would post my instructions here to get you started. Please feel free to email me at janelle@pigeonpointglass.com with any questions.

Getting Started

What you will need -

1000ml Glass Beaker
Digital Rectifier
U-Wire
Straight Wire
Copper Anodes (2)
Copper Wire (18 gauge)
Electroforming Solution
Electroforming Paint
Paintbrush
Craft Knife
Green Scrubby Pad
Gloves
Wire Brush

There are just a few more items you will need and a couple of things to keep in mind. You will need a one gallon jug of distilled water. This is normally available in any supermarket. Keep a good supply of paper towels on hand. You may want to be near a sink or other source of water. You should protect the surface on which you are working and protect yourself by wearing gloves. Just how toxic are these chemicals? Well, they are definitely acidic. They will generally not burn the skin on contact, but make sure you wash your hands or any other body part that comes into contact with the solution. If you buy solution or other chemicals in the future, be aware of what you are buying. Some solutions even contain cyanide as a key ingredient! Tin snips are my friend – you can use jewelry wire cutters but 18 gauge wire isn’t all that delicate and a small pair of tin snips from the hardware store will last forever.

Preparing Your Bead (Or other item to be electroformed)

Make sure the object is clean and free of oils that will stop the paint from adhering to the surface.

Paint the area of the bead or other item to be electroformed with the copper loaded paint.

You may attach objects to your bead with a craft glue and once it is dry, you may paint over the attached object (including any glue that might still be showing).

Let the paint dry and use the craft knife to clean up any areas where you “overpainted”. Make sure to remove all traces of paint from these areas or else you will have uneven electroformed edges.

It is important that you realize that the copper electroforming will not adhere to your bead. Therefore, if you paint just one end of your bead, it may electroform and become a copper “bead cap” but it will fall off. Painting disconnected dots on the bead will not work either. I’ll say this several times in these instructions – you must form a completed circuit so a patch of paint that just sits on the bead will – a. Fall off and b. Not electroform in the first place. If your bead goes from wide at the top to narrow in the middle, painting a band around the bead may be a good idea because it will not be able to slip off. Similarly, say you make a tab and you paint “tracks” on it – the tracks on the front should connect up to the ones on the other side so as to complete the circuit. If you have questions about this, please let me know.

Now you’re ready to set up and go!

Setting Up

Unpack the rectifier from its box and set it on a level surface. Attach the leads to the rectifier - red to red and black to black.

Place the beaker on a level surface and fill with electroforming solution.

Next, you will be getting your anodes ready. With the green scrubby pad, vigorously scrub two of the copper pieces (anodes) on both sides until they shine. It may help to cut the pad into smaller pieces. Cut two 6-inch pieces of 18 gauge wire. Attach one piece of wire to each anode by feeding it through the pre-drilled hole and then twisting it. Now, attach the other end of the wire to the preformed u-wire. Place the u-wire over the beaker so that the anodes hang into the solution.

Now, cut an 8-inch piece of 18 gauge wire. With this wire, you will attach the object to be electroformed. Feed the wire through the hole of the bead and bend one send so that it makes contact with the copper electroforming paint. Wrap the other end around the straight (but bent on both ends) thicker wire that came with the kit. It is very important that this piece makes contact somewhere with the paint. The idea is that you are trying to make a complete circuit. If there is not a complete circuit, no electroforming will occur.

When the anodes are in the solution and the bead is hung carefully in the middle of them from the straight wire, you can attach the red alligator clip end of the lead to the “U” part of the u-wire and the black alligator clip end of the lead to the “L end” of straight wire. I try to remember that “black = bead”.

Make sure that your rectifier is plugged in. Turn the upper knob (amps) all the way to the left (off) and turn the lower knob all the way to the right (on). Turn on the rectifier – all should read zero. If it is not reading zero, check to make sure that the u-wire and the straight wire are not touching. Also check to see if the bead is touching the anodes in any way. Your bead should also not sit on the bottom of the beaker. If so, fix these problems before turning the rectifier up. Turn the top knob to .15 – be sure that you are doing the “point 1-5” reading instead of the “one-point-five” reading! Electroforming happens very slowly with a very small amount of electricity. If you turn the rectifier up too high, the solution will bubble and boil and copper will deposit at such a high speed that it becomes very brittle. If you do it too slowly, the bead will come out a salmon color. This is not terrible but not ideal. Bigger beads may need a little more amperage and smaller, less. It doesn’t matter what the bottom number on the rectifier reads, as long as it is reading something. The bottom number also tends to go down and may fluctuate – this is perfectly fine. The top number may fluctuate a bit but generally stays within .1 of where you set it. Once you confirm that electroforming is happening, you can turn the rectifier up to .25 - .30, depending on the size of the object you are electroforming.

The waiting! It can take as much as three days to electroform a larger object. A small, painted bead can take as little as 12 to 24 hours. The important thing is to check the bead – first after about 4 hours. Wear your gloves and pull the bead out of the solution by turning off the rectifier and pulling the straight wire up and out of the solution. Rest the bead on a paper towel and check to make sure some electroforming is occurring. At this point, make sure that the wire you are hanging the bead from is not adhering to the paint. Move it to another location. If there are bare areas, you may want to let the bead dry and repaint those areas before putting the bead back into the solution. If you need to rinse your bead, use the distilled water or if you use tap water, dry the bead thoroughly before placing it back in the solution. The metals in the tap water can “foul” the solution so try to mix as little tap water into it as possible. Place the bead back in the solution and continue to check on it until you deem it “done”. I call a bead finished when it has a thick layer of copper deposition. If an object is attached to the bead, the object should be stiff and have an appearance of solid copper.

Finishing. Remove your bead from the solution as in step 7. Rinse the bead – this time tap water is fine. Under running water, scrub your bead with a wire brush. If your bead comes out a salmon color (not shiny), don’t panic. Brushing the bead will bring it to a nice copper luster. Remove the bead completely from the wire you hung it from and you have a finished bead!

Adding a patina. Dissolve a few granules of liver of sulphur in tap water (preferably warm) in a glass or ceramic dish and paint it on the bead using a paintbrush or cotton bud. Long exposures to liver of sulphur can destroy a paint brush so make sure to rinse it very well after use. You can also get a green or verdigris patina by dipping the bead in ammonia and then hanging the bead over about an inch of the ammonia in a jar for a few hours. The fumes oxidize the copper – it’s not the liquid ammonia itself that does it. Finally, you can silver black your bead as you would any other metal. If you do not want any patina, you can lacquer the copper on your bead with clear fingernail polish immediately to preserve that “new penny” look. If you don’t do anything to it, it will eventually darken a bit and may form dark spots. If you don’t like this look, use your wire brush to shine it up and start over.

Congratulations! You’ve electroformed your first bead! What next?

Well, you can use the same solution up to two times. After that, you’ll want to use two coffee filters, some fish carbon and a funnel to clarify your solution. Simply put the funnel on the bottle the solution came in. Put two coffee filters into the funnel and about a tablespoon full of fish carbon. Remove the u-wire with the anodes and place on a paper towel (this can be messy so watch out). Pour your solution from the beaker through the filters and back into the bottle. This is a good opportunity to see how much fluid has evaporated. Your solution should come right up to the ribbed part of the bottle. If it does not, add distilled water until it does. At this point, you can add a few drops of the “Copper Brightener”. This is not necessary after only one or two beads. I usually add brightener after every three to four beads. I have been using the same solution for over a year using this method. Keep your solution clean and it will keep you happy! Between every bead, inspect your anodes to make sure they are not getting too thin. Scrub them well with the scrubby pad until they shine as much as they can. Your main goal is to expose “good copper” for the electroforming process. Use new wire to hang your bead from each time.

Troubleshooting

It’s been several hours and no electroforming is occurring. Make sure you really have waited one to two hours before checking the first time. The beginning stages of electroforming look like streaks of pink on the copper paint. If you’ve waited enough time and it’s still not happening, check to make sure the bead is not touching anything. Make sure your readings on the rectifier are normal. Make sure your anodes are as clean as possible and that they are not worn to a paper-thin sheet. Make sure the wire is touching a part of the paint and you are forming a complete circuit.

Your bead is a dull salmon color. Up the current (top knob) a bit. Sometimes I just can’t get a shiny surface right out of the solution and sometimes the bead shines immediately. This is truly trial and error.

Your electroforming is brittle and flakes off. You had the current set too high and the electroforming occurred too quickly. Turn the current down and put the bead back in until a smooth, strong layer of copper deposits on top of the brittle copper. You can actually get some cool effects this way but be aware of what you are doing. No one wants a bead or vessel with flaking copper!

Thanks for visiting my site! To see examples of some of my own electroforming, CLICK HERE

Happy electroforming!

Janelle

Janelle Zorko
Pigeon Point Glass