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Old 2007-06-13, 6:10pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by scupltorgirl View Post
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.
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
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