![[37zmidio.bmp]] Our wonderful friend Lanea was on the way to be bestowed a Pelican, and we wanted to sneakily make a special enameled medallion for her. Our equally wonderful friend Bran executed the art for this design and did an incredible job. It was basically the perfect design for enameling and had a lot of color that really stood out. We made four because it was super important to us to produce something Lanea was happy with <3 Bran also made the chain seen above that holds the medallion on the torc. As usual, Baroness Sinn was with me every step of the way while learning how to solder the bails for the medallions, and she did a large part of the enameling and polishing. She also did essentially all of the work bending the bails for me to solder. In typical fashion, we caused a major disruption to ourselves during the creation of this medallion. Typically, the designs I use leave a border on the outside that allow me to drill holes for jump rings. It's a little easier than soldering, and allows the medallion to hang such that it does not spin while worn. In this case, Bran wanted the medallion design to be pushed as close to the border as possible in order to properly create the effect he wanted. I figured I could make the bails and figure out a way to learn as I went. (Why do we make this so difficult on ourselves?) My roommate, who is a master goldsmith and produces some incredible work, suggested a design for the bail using copper wire. At first I wanted the bail to attach to the side of the disk so we could see the entire pretty curls of the ends. However, this proved to be very difficult, and the practice was time consuming. We likely could have made it work, but due to time constraints and some frustration at the process, I decided ultimately to solder the bail to the rear side of the medallion under the counter enamel. This allowed the solder to be hidden in addition to strengthening the bails attachment (I wasn't confident in my soldering ability to create a long lasting bail with just solder). The other thing we unexpectedly practiced with was the white situation. As discussed in the [[Metalwork/Enameling/Projects/Highland Foorde Award Medallions]] page, the Titanium White had this tendency to jump over its borders. Some research suggested that Undercoat White (1010) could be used underneath Quill White (1040) to create a pretty white with some depth. Alternatively, Fusing (2040) enamel could be used as a transparent base coat for the white. We thought this would be more straightforward than it was, but the effect produced was a little unexpected, so this also provided another interesting learning experience. ## Construction I followed the normal process we use of using press n peel paper as resist for etching. ![[cu4pfq65.bmp]] After etching and cleaning the metal, the bails were made and soldered on. ![[2fw2gh2m.bmp]] ![[zi0t412v.bmp]] ![[oz8kerkh.bmp]] After all that, enameling proceeded as normal. ![[oom1j74d.bmp]] ![[9bd4wxh3.bmp]] ![[p38svofy.bmp]] ![[buro51s9.bmp]] ## Finished ![[ol1f1js7.bmp]] ![[oaru3sur.bmp]] ![[3qr64dfy.bmp]] ![[cnt1q2iq.bmp]]