Quote:
Originally Posted by scupltorgirl
In my experience, slowing the cooling using a crockpot on high filled with vermiculite truly DOES allow you to make things with the soft glasses that would crack otherwise.
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I'll agree that vermiculite (and other similar materials) can allow
soft glass items to cool slower, reducing (but not necessarily eliminating) the need for true annealing. I have been told that the Japanese glass (Satake, Kinari, etc.) has such a low annealing temperature that they use ash, or what they call annealing bubbles, as a replacement for vermiculite, and many artists do not use kilns to anneal their beads.
But, I'd like to ask the question: why even use a Crockpot? My experience is that a Crockpot cannot achieve temperatures of over 150-180 deg. F. This is so far below the annealing temperature of even the softest glass that I don't see the benefit. Other than psychological, that is.
Malcolm