Help with a gold melting dilemma

[cejohnsonsr1]

Most people who have problems glazing a new melt dish are using the wrong kind of torch. A regular butane or propane torch won’t get hot enough. You need a MAP gas torch. Heat the dish evenly until it glows red. Then sprinkle a little borax on the top lip of the dish. Work your way all the way around. Just a sprinkle at a time. When you have finished the lip you should be able to see how the excess flowed down below the lip. Continue in the same manner, but working around the inside of the bowl. Again, just a sprinkle at a time. Eventually all you’ll have left is the very bottom of the bowl. Sprinkle in a pinch and work it around by tilting the dish in whatever direction remains unglazed. When you have the entire dish glazed, before you let it cool down, tilt it and look for any excess that might pool in the bottom. If there is any excess, pour it out. Tips: Keep the torch moving. Don’t linger in any spot for more than about a second. Work slowly. Take your time. This isn’t going to be done in a minute or two. Be patient and do it right. You can use 40 Mule Train Borax (in the US) available in most grocery stores or from Amazon. It’s soap, so it should be available almost everywhere by one name or another. As usual, Sreetips has a pretty good demonstration on his YouTube channel.

 

[Golddigger76]

If you have heated your melting dish to red hot and then you sprinkle borax on it and nothing happens...

Well you probably don't have borax, try another supplier or even borax for washing laundry will work.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Sreetips has a video I think, just sprinkles tiny pinches into hot dish and melts bit by bit.
I tried the salt pepper way but had less control

I have never tried the salt pepper way, I just saw somebody recommend it and it made sense.
Personally I used the finger pinch method
A little too much at times though.

 

[orvi]

Most people who have problems glazing a new melt dish are using the wrong kind of torch. A regular butane or propane torch won’t get hot enough. You need a MAP gas torch. Heat the dish evenly until it glows red. Then sprinkle a little borax on the top lip of the dish. Work your way all the way around. Just a sprinkle at a time. When you have finished the lip you should be able to see how the excess flowed down below the lip. Continue in the same manner, but working around the inside of the bowl. Again, just a sprinkle at a time. Eventually all you’ll have left is the very bottom of the bowl. Sprinkle in a pinch and work it around by tilting the dish in whatever direction remains unglazed. When you have the entire dish glazed, before you let it cool down, tilt it and look for any excess that might pool in the bottom. If there is any excess, pour it out. Tips: Keep the torch moving. Don’t linger in any spot for more than about a second. Work slowly. Take your time. This isn’t going to be done in a minute or two. Be patient and do it right. You can use 40 Mule Train Borax (in the US) available in most grocery stores or from Amazon. It’s soap, so it should be available almost everywhere by one name or another. As usual, Sreetips has a pretty good demonstration on his YouTube channel.

Good propane/butane torch with proper air/fuel mixing ratio is fully sufficient to glaze dish. You need to pre-heat it nicely hot and best use anhydrous borax - which does not have that annoying tendency to creep and clump to one or two points when it is dehydrated.