Tiny chips in the surface of my beads
 

I have noticed in a few of my beads recently that I am somehow getting what look like tiny little chips in the surface of my beads & I have no idea what it is or why it is happening!

It seems to happen for no apparent reason, I haven't dropped the bead or knocked it or anything as simple as that, it happens in lots of different glasses (silver glass, transparents etc), it happens in different torching sessions & there seems to be, literally, no rhyme or reason for it.

Can anyone suggest anything that may be the cause? It is really annoying making a lovely bead & then finding after you've cleaned it that it's useless because it has a defect :( .

Are you using a kiln? Are your beads perhaps going into the kiln too hot and sticking to other beads, causing indentations?

Perhaps if you describe your beadmaking process (type of torch, type of anneal, etc) we could provide a few ideas?

:)

Kiln kiss? Leaning up against another bead and dinging it in the kiln? Are you a bead stacker in the kiln? That is the main reason I won't allow my beads to touch in the kiln. Typical wear "banging" against another bead shouldn't chip it if it is properly annealed

Got a picture?

A couple of reasons come to mind- They're touching in the kiln and may have been too warm when they 'kissed'. When they cool, they come apart leaving the kiss marks behind. Or
You've got some kind of incompatability going on and if they're opaque beads you may not be seeing the internal stress, just what's on the surface.
That's all I can think of right now.

Yes, I put my beads straight into the kiln but I am always extremely careful that they don't touch each other when they are too hot. After they have been in the kiln for a while & are sitting at my garage temp, I will sometimes stack them over to one side so I can slot the new ones I put in so they don't touch each other, maybe that's what is causing it?

I am using a cricket & an oxycon if that's any help.

I will see if i have a pic - the problem is that the chips are usually soooooo tiny that I would struggle to photograph them, half the time I don't even notice the chip until I feel it with my fingers first.

Hopefully cropping the bead picture down to the area of the chip before cropping will show the chip, I'm curious to see one too.

Stacking them even after they have been in there a while can cause chips if your kiln runs hot... and sometimes even if your kiln is spot on... NO TOUCHY IN THE KILN. That is what I scream when the mandrels start rolling around on me. It's a panic attack waiting to happen.

http://www.mountainglass.com/Kiln-Mandrel-Rack.html

I have this rack in my kiln to avoid heart attack on rolling mandrels and kiln kisses!!

What is your garage temp? I know that some colors IME, can't ever touch other beads. Especially rubino.

I have one of the kiln racks but my kiln isn't very big, so i move them across after a while so that I don't knock the ones I'm putting in. I garage at around 985 (I had to work it out, because my kiln is displaying (in Celcius) 530, so I think that's 985, is that too high?).

Here are 2 beads with chips, the first one is plain old black with nothing else (so I'm guessing it's not an incompatability problem), the second is rubino & a transparent green on clear (both Effetre). These ones are much bigger than some of the others I have found on my silver glass, but I can't find any of those silver glass beads right now. These 2 pics were taken with this cool little microscope that connects via USB that we have, so the chips are much much larger in the pics than they are IRL (about the size of the head of a pin).

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q...boy/crack3.jpg http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q...boy/crack4.jpg

It's almost 1am here, so I'm off to bed & will reply to anything in the morning :) .

That's hot. Really hot. I think 925-950 is plenty hot. Some people even go as low as 900, but I'm not that brave. Lower the temp and/or Don't stack, no matter how baddly you want to stick another bead in.

They do look like kiln kisses. If you visualize a bead touching the bead that is dinged up, is it in a spot that makes sense? Mine usually happen around the belly of the bead, when I get greedy with my kiln space.

Ditto what Jamie said. That's about 50 degrees F higher than I'd go (30C?). And even at a lower garage temp I still wouldn't stack any bead with rubino on the surface.

Wow, you guys garage at high temps. I used to garage at 750 until I had one crack. For the past couple years I garage at 850 and have no problems.

I don't get to the torch as often I would like, so I anneal every 3 weeks. Don't have any cracking problems.

Rick

That is kiln kisses...
And this temp is very hot... I garage at 950 and I never had a single bead that cracked.

That is really hovering around the stress point though. IMHO too low, but if it works for you, more power to ya. Maybe your kiln runs a tad hot.

:lol: I never let my beads touch either and I know my kiln in right on temp. Seeing pictures of people that stack their beads up in a big pile makes me a little crazy. :)

I KNOW! When they show class pictures of the kiln absolutely STUFFED full of beads I almost faint. :lol:

Thank you everyone! I never even thought about them touching each other, I will be much more careful in future to make sure that they don't touch each other & I will see if I can adjust the garaging temp down a bit as well.

ETA - funny thing is, I've never found any beads with extra bits of glass on them (the bits broken off like in the pics above) only the ones with chips out of them :lol: .

Check your kiln floor. :)

I think that's because they're not chips as such, but divots where the glass has been hot enough to be marked, by the object next to it. Like if you pushed a tool against the surface of a hot bead. Might be wrong though, I'm always learning :) Jennie

Bingo! Robyn, when I first got my kiln, and Bev was helping me set it all up, she suggested a sag test. My rods sagged at 530. I garage at about 480, and that's my hold temp also before switching off (it's a big ole brick pottery/china kiln, so ramping down isn't necessary).
I've had no problems with that temp, and my polarised lenses show that annealing does happen with each firing.

What a bugger, though. I hope the solution is that easy. But I think that's definitely your problem :-)

If it's just a bit too hot then yes, that will happen. If it's more than just a bit too hot they will actually stick and you can get a chip in the bead after they have cooled and come apart. Looking at her picture, that looks like a chip out of the bead.

So next time I want to drive Jamie or Amy nuts I will just post of picture of beads touch.

When I first got my glass hive I grabbed all my nonannealled beads and threw them in a pile on the floor. Haha. I pulled out one big bead. It wasn't fully fused or anything but lots of little chips were the beads touched.

I stack beads and have never had a problem with them sticking. I have a rack in one side of my kiln and I put the bead on the rack and then when the next bead goes in, I move the prior bead over (or, if I'm making sets, all the beads in the set go onto the rack and then once the set is done I move them all - that's how I keep count).

Amy, good point, I had to vaccuum the floor of the kiln a couple of weeks ago because it looked like it had "stuff" in there. I bet it was glass chips, you are right, they are definitely chips because the edges are sharp when you run your finger over them.

Di, 530 :oops: #-o :jawdrop: I will defintely lower my temp then.

Nikki, #-o :lol:

Felicia, that's exactly what I have always done, but I will be careful from now on.

Pssst, Robyn- I think they use Celsius temp in Australia where Di is!

Those look like real chips but something that can look like a chip is when you have a bubble near the surface that contracts when the glass cools leaving a concave spot. Some glass is boily any you may have multiple bubble indentations. Alabasters especially are prone to this and some frit will react this way too.

:lol: Pssst, it's OK Glenda, I'm in Australia too ;) I was just a bit shocked to hear that her rods slumped at 530 though because that's about what I am garaging at #-o .