[Sue in Maine]

I'll start.

Turn your kiln on BEFORE you start so your kiln can ramp up to temperature so when you are done with your first bead, you can pop it safely into your hot kiln.

Time and temp: Check your manual and program it according to instructions. On my Chilipepper, I set my program for a 6 hour working hold temperature but I can "skipstep" and go into the annealing program if I don't work for a full 6 hours- and I rarely ever work for 6 hours.

Boro and Soft glass hold at different temperatures so please do not increase your annealing temps to boro temps while you have soft beads in the kiln. You can work soft first and switch to boro, leaving your program at soft temps but you will want to Batch Anneal your boro at a later date and take the glass to boro temps. (You will melt your soft glass beads if you put them in at a boro temp.)

And, no, we weren't born with the knowledge. In my case, it took 3 of us to figure out the manual and how to program my kiln the first time. You're in good company.

LE has a great SEARCH feature. At the top of your LE screen, follow across... User CP... FAQ... Member List... to the right you should see "search." Click on search and a drop down box will appear. Type in words for LE to search for... anything less than 4 letters, use an * as a wildcard. For example: Programming a* kiln

It will bring up a lot of related threads that have those words in the text of the posts.

I hope this helps.

Sue