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Tips, Techniques, and Questions -- Technical questions or tips

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  #1  
Old 2006-11-30, 6:11pm
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Smile Kilns?

Hi Everyone,
I'm new to all of this. I've been reading a through the forums a lot and have heard how important it is to properly anneal beads. Will a fiber blanket properly anneal them or is a kiln necessary? If a kiln is necessary, what do you recommend? Where do you find them?
Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer!
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  #2  
Old 2006-11-30, 6:28pm
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No, cooling in a fiber blanket is not annealing. It's just slowing down the cooling process. It does not remove any of the stresses that are creating while you're making the bead. The bead is still liable to crack unexpectedly.

Sorry -- the other questions take more time to answer than I have right now (and there's no one right answer for everyone, anyway). I'll have to leave you to the good graces of somebody else for the moment.
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  #3  
Old 2006-11-30, 6:31pm
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A fiber blanket doesn't anneal beads, it just slows it from cooling down rapidly. The bead would still need to be batch annealed in a kiln. Too much information to re-write, recommend you do a search on kilns and I know you'll find tons of information. Kilns and recommendations have been discussed a lot, there are tons of threads on them.
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  #4  
Old 2006-11-30, 6:36pm
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You need to provide some more info if you want suggestions for a kiln. They are all dif and it really depends on what you want to do with it. Just beads? larger stuff? boro? sculpture?fusing?
chris ann
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  #5  
Old 2006-11-30, 8:10pm
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Oh dear. From what I had read and researched I knew it was difficult to choose a kiln, but I didn't realize it was sooo complicated. I guess I still have a lot to learn about lampworking basics and glass in general before I make any decisions on what kind of kiln to buy. Thanks for the fast responses!
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  #6  
Old 2006-11-30, 8:18pm
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Oh, and I apologize for not searching the forums thoroughly first. I had intended to, but I didn't see a search button. I found it now!! Sorry!
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  #7  
Old 2006-11-30, 9:39pm
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No worries, mngirl. I hope you didn't take it the wrong way, it just helps if you search the forum and narrow your search down to a couple kilns that you're interested in. That way you can ask specific questions on them and people's preferences/feedback like chrissann stated above. That way it's easier for everyone else to recommend pros/cons of that particular kiln.
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  #8  
Old 2006-12-01, 5:16am
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Check out the threads on the blue bird from paragon. Great kiln that I am sure you would have trouble filling up! It seams perfect if you just do beads, and a really good value for the money.
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  #9  
Old 2006-12-01, 7:58am
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Mngirl,
I am new but from what I have been able to search through this will help.
It compares different brands, price ranges. This will give you several ideas and and links, yes more questoins!! There are kilns for different glass, slumping, Annealing, PMC and creamics.
http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/feature/kilns.cfm
If anyone else has suggestoins please chime in,
Marieann
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  #10  
Old 2006-12-01, 11:30am
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Your first decision needs to be whether you want a kiln just for annealing beads, or whether you want to be able to do something else in it, like fusing glass, firing PMC (Precious Metal Clay), or enameling. (Fusing, PMC & Art Clay, and enameling all require higher temperatures than annealing, and yoy need to make sure that the maximum operating temperature of your kiln is high enough for those other tasks.) You also need to make a guess about the type and amount of glasswork you think you'll be doing. Will it be just beads, or do you expect to be doing sculptures or vessels that are more than about two inches high? (If so, you need a front opening kiln, rather than a top-opening kiln with a bead door.) Do you expect to work only with soft glass (Moretti/Effetre, Bullseye, Lauscha, Vetrofond, Reichenbach, Kugler, Gaffer), or do you plan to use boro? (Some of the toolbox-type kilns, like the Chili Pepper, have a maximum operating temperature of 1100 F, which will anneal boro, but won't go high enough to kiln-strike some boro colors.)

What's the electrical supply in the place where you want to put the kiln? Larger kilns want 220 lines, but it's easy to find bead annealers that run on normal household circuits (110). However, even small kilns tend to want around 12 to 15 amps, and the usual household circuit is 15 amps. That means that you pretty much can't have anything else plugged into the same circuit as your kiln or you'll blow the fuse (or trip the circuit breaker). If having a dedicated line for your kiln isn't an option, you might want to consider the toolbox-type annealer that Don McKinney makes. It's strictly a bead annealer -- max temp of 1200 F -- but it draws an amazingly low amount of power, something like 6.7 amps.

If portability is important -- if you plan to take your kiln to shows or demos or open torch sessions, or if you have to put it away -- consider one of the toolbox-type annealers, which are very lightweight. The downside is that they're strictly for annealing, and that they cool more rapidly than firebrick kilns, so if you don't have a digital controller they require you to monitor them more closely to make sure they're cooling slowly enough.

Whether to get a digital controller or a pyrometer/infinite switch combination is a major decision, mostly between you and your budget. If you can afford a digital controller, you want one. They're not essential, but they're a huge convenience. They let you enter a program that tells the kiln what temperature to go to, how long to take to get there, how long to stay at the temperature, what temperature to go to next, how long to take to get there, and so on for several different temperatures (usually at least four different steps). The alternative is a pyrometer, which is just a thermometer that tells you what the temperature is inside the kiln, and an infinite switch controller, which controls the amount of power that goes to the heating elements in the kiln. The infinite switch will have settings from Low to High or from 1 to 10. You have to learn by experience which settings will get your kiln to hold at the right temperatures for annealing, and when you want the kiln to cool down at a controlled rate, you have to turn the switch down bit by bit every so often over the course of a couple hours. It's doable, just a bit of a pain. If necessary, you can start with an infinite switch/pyrometer and add a digital controller later. You'll end up paying more than you would if you bought the digital controller initially, but those are the breaks.

If you go over to the Glass Art section of WetCanvas.com, in the Glass Class 101 section there's a very long "sticky" thread on Kilns that has a lot of posts from people talking about different kilns. It may be so long that it's not useful at all, but take a quick browse and see if looking at it helps you at all. You'll see that most people like their kilns. If you want to browse on line, Centre de Verre has a nice website and a nice selection of kilns. I've never bought a kiln there, but I hear good things about their customer service. They're at www.cdvkiln.com. It does pay to comparison shop for kilns -- I was doing some kiln shopping last summer and found a lot of variation on price on one I was looking at (which I liked a lot, but decided wasn't the type of kiln I needed for present purposes -- the Skutt GM10F). As with anything you buy on-line, check out your vendor. I don't know of any sleazy kiln vendors, but I guess there could be some. Ceramic kilns are not usually suitable for bead annealing. Too big, for one thing, and they're top-loaders without bead doors. You don't want to try to put a bead into a hot kiln from the top. Heat rises, and you'll roast your arm.

Bear in mind that a glass annealing kiln and a bead annealing kiln aren't exactly the same thing. Kilns designed specifically for beadmakers will have the elements placed so that you're not likely to hit them with a mandrel when you're putting a bead into the kiln. Kilns designed for people who do off-mandrel work -- sculpture, or work with tubing -- may not have been designed with that in mind. They're likely to be front-opening kilns. You can certainly use them for bead annealing, but you're always going to have to be careful when you put a mandrel in that you don't hit an element. (I've been in a class where a mandrel that was propped on something slipped and shorted out an element -- it was a little bit exciting. I wouldn't want to be on the other end of the mandrel that did it.) Also, some kilns are designed so that the power cuts off when the door is open. If the kiln isn't deep enough for the entire mandrel to fit in, the door won't close, and you physically can't anneal beads on mandrels in it. (Some of the PMC kilns had this feature. They're now being designed with available bead doors. I still wouldn't recommend them as primary bead annealing kilns because the bead doors are really small, and you wouldn't be able to get much in them.)
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  #11  
Old 2006-12-01, 11:48am
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Mngirl, since you live in Mpls, go to J.Ring, it is a stained glass and soft glass supplier. Joe has lots of kilns to look at and if something goes wrong with them, he will fix them. His store is off 280 and territorial road.
Give him a try, he's been great!!!
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  #12  
Old 2006-12-02, 1:04pm
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Thank you so much for the replies, everyone! Emily - your response is incredible - it helps *a lot*!! After reading through all of this, I realize that maybe I was rushing just a bit. I'm going to put a lot more time and thought into choosing a kiln. I really appreciate all of your help and time.

Thanks!
Heather
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  #13  
Old 2006-12-09, 7:32am
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Look at the fusing kilns from Arrow Springs. My studio has 2 (small and large versions). Bead, sculptures, goblets, PMC, fusing, slumping have all be done in the same kiln. Well constructed also.
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  #14  
Old 2006-12-09, 11:19pm
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Hello- This newbie is going to ask a question that has probable been asked a thousand times. I want to buy a kiln to anneal my beads but I would also like it to be able to do boro, plus have the ability to use it for Fusing, PMC & Art Clay, and enameling. Digital control and 110, space conservative would be nice also. I have read all the threads but value the forums suggestions on what would be the best kilns to do all this. I am sure everyone has their favorites- but if narrowed down over a survey I bet there would only be 1-3 very favorites. So I ask please for help in what I should be looking at out there - I had thought I had decided on a chili but then read how small it was and its temp limitations. So I am now back to step 1 and asking for help?
Thanks for playing with fire!
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  #15  
Old 2006-12-09, 11:25pm
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I have a paragon bluebird and LOVE IT!!!!
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  #16  
Old 2006-12-09, 11:29pm
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Sandie, check out the bluebird. It is a great kiln for the money. I love paragon. I went with the F120 but wanted to do dishes sculptures etc. If not for that I would have went with the blue bird. Deb Crowley's husband also makes a really nice kiln.
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