Electroforming Around Sea Glass

 

Here are a few pieces of sea glass that I electroformed with copper around the edges. I used both silver conductive paint and graphite paint to compare the differences in technique.  Silver paint is really sticky and so I simply painted around the edge of the glass with the paint with one coat and let the paint dry, done! For the graphite sample I added and extra step. First, I painted the edge of the glass with water-based varnish to help the graphite paint stick.  After the varnish dried I painted the edge with graphite paint.  Regardless of the paint you use, be sure to paint a bit over the edge so that the copper will "wrap" around the edge of the glass like a bezel.

   

Attach a wire making sure the wire touches the paint around the glass and then electroform.  I plated these one at a time with the following: .50A for 10 minutes and then 3-6 hours at .15A

   

The end result is the same with either conductive paint.  The little black and white sample (upper right) was painted with graphite.  And if you are wondering where the images came from, I used ITS to apply images to the glass prior to electroforming.  Sealer was used to make the images extra durable.