Hello all:
I've been investigating the best and most
durable materials for the sundial faces of my sundial cupola
design.
I've discovered this:
1. Even the best enamel paints chip,
wear off and fade.
2. Baked powder coat paints are much more
durable but you can not easily paint more than one color or a design on top
of another color. You can not overglaze, (put another layer of
powdercoat over a base layer).
3. Porcelain has a great advantage in that it
can be overglazed with different colors of vitreous paints and
refired. So porcelain painting is similar to glass painting in that
you can paint it with a permanent overglaze of different colored paints that
do not fade, chip or flake off. It's practically
weather-proof!
Many old clock faces were made on painted
porcelain for these very good reasons.
There are companies who will paint and fire
your sundial design on porcelain. They can make stencils from your design
drawings or they can paint by hand. I even found one company that
has a photographic technique of applying paint to porcelain. (and it's here
in Tucson!)
Have any of you ever seen a painted porcelain
sundial?
Yes: a friend of mine once offered me a
reproduction of an ancient ceramic tiles sundial, and he himself made at least
two of them which are on walls in Spain. There also happens to be one close to
where I live, here in Brussels, Belgium.