Used Kilns - What to Ask

Should you purchase a used kiln for annealing your beads? Here's a few random thoughts on the topic.

A kiln is not really any more sophisticated than a well-insulated toaster oven. Sometime you see older kilns for sale - here's some questions to ask before you buy:

What what is designed for, and what has it been used for? A quick google may find that out for you. Ceramics kilns, kilns for enameling, etc, all can be used, with some caveats. Kilns for metal clay are relatively new - so unlikely to be too old or damaged. These may be sorta small - but they might work. Enamelling kilns may have some messy spills inside - but you can put a kiln shelf over it if you can't get the stuff out.

What voltage is it? 220 or 110. 110 is easy - 220 is faster to heat up and more efficient, but you have to have the plug for it (like a dryer plug.) Installing a 220 volt plug is non-trivial - it requires an electrician.

Are the elements encased? Bead kilns often have the heating elements in quartz tubes - this prevents you from touching them accidentally with metal mandrels. Metal mandrel on metal element is a bad thing. Alternately - the elements in a bead kiln may be recessed in the roof of the kiln where they are harder to stick a mandrel into. (But, not impossible. I know of someone who has done this.)

Top opening or front opening? A door on the front is nice - and if it has one - will it stay up by itself? Top opening - I know quite a few bead makers that prefer this. A pair of long tweezers helps a lot - put on the big suede welding gloves, grasp the mandrel below the bead with the tweezers, swing the door open (now you are losing heat) - pop the bead in, and swing it closed. You can practice with the kiln off and just mandrels!

How big is the inside of the kiln? Mandrels are often 9 inches or 12. Do you have enough room to get the mandrels in? Or, conversely - is it so big it is overkill? Heating that extra space will cost money.

How big is the outside of the kiln? You need space around it between it and the walls, etc. Do you have room for it? (Hint - if it takes more than one strong person to move it - it's probably overkill for beads.)

Is it old? It may be quite inefficient and leak heat through old, damaged firebricks or a poorly-fitting door. Ceramic fibre blanket can be replaced, however - especially around doors - where I think it is designed to be replaced on a regular basis. If the clips to hold this in place are missing - a couple of bent mandrels can replace them. Bend to shape. I use bent mandrels to repair all manner of things!

Are the elements in good shape? - not sagging or heavily corroded or kinked? Elements can be replaced - but they ain't free. Might be worth it though.

Is is controlled by a kiln-sitter? Ceramic kilns have a device that uses a cone melting at a specific temperature to shut off the kiln (called a kiln sitter) - a rather ingenious method of controlling the temperature but not accurate enough for glass. The usual protocol is to circumvent the cone sitter and install a pyrometer (a thermometer for high temperatures) to display the temperature and to manually control the temp with the control dial, or to install a digital controller. (Installing a digital controller is easy, btw. There is usually a hole in the kiln for the temperature probe. Pull this out - they aren't usually secured. Thread the one from the controller into the hold. Plug the kiln into the controller. Plug the controller into the wall. Turn the kiln to full. Set the controller. That's it. Done.)

If it's a very good price - it may be a good deal. (To me - I would want it to be under $200). Otherwise - kilns have come down a lot - and I do love having a digital controller! And a swing up bead door!

Of course - check out the cost of shipping if it isn't local - that may destroy any savings you were going to get!

Happy Hour Torching

Announcing - Happy Hour Torching

Starting this Thursday - April 23rd - Happy Hour Torching at beadFX. Torch one hour - get the second hour free. 5 til 9 p.m.

I've found that - while it is wonderful to sit down in your own studio and make beads - it can also be a lot of fun to do with other lampworkers around - you can get a really cool energy going and lots of great ideas pop out.

beadFX is the studio where I teach. They also rent studio time, by the hour or in blocks of time (by the hour, $15/hour or a block of 10 hours is $12/hour - which you can use up in increments as small as 15 minutes.) Torch time includes annealing - dipped mandrels, use of basic tools and glasses, and the beads being pulled for you the next day (which, on some days, I feel is worth the cost alone!). Glass is available for purchase, or bring your own.

So the deal is: Torch for one hour, either on a studio card or at the hourly rate - and get the second hour free. (No credits, must use free hour immediately - i.e. no saving it up for later.)

I'll be in the studio also torching from 7 - 9 at least - possibly earlier - so if you have questions or need help with a technique - you can fire away with the questions! Or you can just fire away!

Come out and bead social! (Calling or emailing the store to reserve a torch might be wise!)

Update on Abby: I'm hoping to bring her home the end of this week! She's not walking or standing yet - but she is getting movement back in her legs. Her arthritis is very bad - which makes getting her moving harder - but critical!

Still Here

I haven't dropped off the face of the planet. Last Friday - my girl Abby - pic - collapsed in the back yard - her hindquarters paralysed.

I rushed her to emerg (it was Good Friday, remember?) and they diagnosed a ruptured disc between L1 and L2.

She had surgery on Monday. She's still at the clinic - and I'm visiting her every day. This has taken up a lot of my energy.

I haven't gone away - I just have nothing particularly glassy to say - except - I need to sell a lot of beads.

TAG 104 - Taxco Light Limited Edition

This is another TAG (Trautman Art Glass) Limited Edition variation. This is a light green variant of the Taxco Silver Turquoise. I think I might like this one a little better than the original too!

The two spacers are very lightly reduced. Not much going on - but a pretty colour regardless.










The bicone in this pic has been reduced a little more - but still - very light reduction. A soft, bushy flame, rather than a strong reduction flame. You can see a bit more effect.

The cylinder bead is over white - and the Taxco appears to have fumed the white - making it look more yellow.









There is more of an iridescence on this bead - but it's darn hard to shoot!















This one - I was quite pleased with the amount of iridescence I got. This is black and ivory, encased in Taxco Light. Really nice oil-slick sheen. Again - really light reduction.


And finally - over dichro. Because, d--- it - eventually I put everything with dichro!

TAG 104 - Green Dalai

Green Dalai - an experimental or limited edition batch from TAG. I decided to treat it like the Dalai - i.e. "heat the snot out of it, and strike it."

The first bead, on the left, I super heated and made the bead, and just let it cool. While it was hot - it had a lot of colour - and so I just popped it into the kiln. It came out really dark - the colour is there - but you need an insane amount of light to see it.











This second bead, I did the same - superheated it, allowed it to cool all the way to not glowing - and then struck twice in the flame. Although, while it was hot - it looked pretty much the same as the above bead, and it didn't look much different while striking - now that it is out of the kiln - I am much happier with this one. Apols for the poor focus - but this pic shows the colours the best.









Third version - my working notes say:

• snot
• cool
• encase
• mash
• really hot

I super heated it (heated the snot out of it), let it cool. Encased it, mashed it, and gave it quite a bit of heat to smooth out the shape and get the encasing to smooth out at the sides. The encasing functions much as the striking does, I'm guessing - as it reheats the surface.

Really like the streaky blues and greens! I might like this better than the regular Dalai Lama!

Yum! Lined beads

I am totally digging using this new bead liner. This is the new bead liner from Nortel - with the snap-in tools.

So far - I'm just enjoying lining single colour "spacers." The red one is 26 mm outside diameter - the lined hole is 8.4 mm.

The red is Lauscha Transparent Light Red (the batch that goes cloudy) and the blue one, on the left, is CiM Halong Bay.

I have a couple of observations - in no particular order, as yet.

If the tubing is too long for the hole - the result is much uglier than if it is too short. Err on the side of shorter. Too long, and it starts to collapse and turn into an oval hole!



You can easily anneal your tubing on your torch. Have a pot of water handy - slide your cut tube piece onto an undipped mandrel - hold level. (If you think you might tip your hand and slide the tube towards you - wrap a turn of glass around the mandrel to act as a stopper - you can crack or shock it off later - or use a bent mandrel.) Hold the tubing in the flame till it gets a dull red glow - take it out immediately (this is easier to see without too many lights on.) It will heat up very fast. Use a small flame - a little on the bushy side. I melted through the first two pieces of tubing. It goes very fast. When you get your dull red glow - slide into the water to cool.

A wire brush on a dremel is great for deburring after cutting the tubing.

I'll keep you posted as I get to larger and larger holes!

Glass Craft Expo

Just got an excited call from a friend on the floor at the Glass Craft and Bead Expo - in Vegas. She was at the Invitational Hot Glass flame-off. To one side of her was Milon Townsend - building a 10 foot tall rocking chair - in glass. To the other side was Doni Hatz and her team - building a 3 foot tall bird cage - with birds. Further down, Bandhu Scott Dunham is building a glass replica of the mousetrap from the game - with a dichro marble being made to roll down it - being made by ... now I forget.

Damn. Shoulda gone.

Saturday Lampworkers Get Together, Nortel Bead Liner

Last Saturday - a bunch of us lampworkers got together for pizza and beadmaking and general bead talk at beadFX - which is a local bead store and lampwork studio. (It's where I teach, among other things!) It's good to get together and talk beads with other folks whose eyes don't glaze over and think "oh gawd - she's talking about beads again."

Thanks to Erin and Jen for the photos of the people who were there!

We got to play with the new Nortel Bead liner - we were all really impressed with how easy to use it is. What impresses me about this tool is that the "heads" - the flaring and shaping part of the tools - snap in and out in seconds - instead of taking out screws or undoing things, etc.

I also like that it is more forgiving than other bead liners on the market. I have a Retro bead liner, and haven't been able to successfully line a bead with it. Maybe I just didn't get the right combination of tubing size and hole size, but I found other things about it just clunky - like trying to find the dimple on the side to get the screw into, and having to pull out the tool part with pliers cause it jammed. But I broke every bead I tried with.

However, I have lined a couple of dozen beads with the Nortel now, and let me tell you - not all of them have been perfect beads either. I had a batch of beads come out of the kiln, perfectly dimpled on one side, flat as a board on the other. Kiln temp must have been too high - that's my story and I'm sticking with it. Anyway, cored those too, and they worked out fine!

We then finished off the evening with some "cooperative beadmaking" Someone would start a bead - work it for a few minutes, then pass it off to someone else to work on for a while. (To the left are the finished beads!) These beads will be donated to the Beads for Breast Cancer fund at beadFX - 100% of the sale of the beads will go to breast cancer.

Anyway - great time was had by all. We have these get togethers once a month or so, and rotate around local studios and also go to restaurants, etc. If you want to be informed about the next one, you can subscribe to the mailing list or find the Toronto Lampworkers group on Facebook!

Northstar - SPC414 Black Pearl

Northstar Glassworks - Black Pearl. This is one of the Northstar "exotic" 104 COE glasses.

The instructions for this say:

Simply reduce SPC414 Black Pearl to get amazing colors. A light reduction is all that is needed to get the colors to pop. Turn down your oxy a bit until you get a small, bushy flame. Pass the bead in and out until you get the colors you want. The colours pop almost immediately. Let it cool a bit and then go back to a neutral flame.

These did reduce very easily and quickly. I turned down the oxygen just a smidgen - not even enough to produce long, yellow candles, just a bushy, fatter flame with ragged candles. (Candles are those "fingers" of bright blue flame that come off the face of the torch.)

These next ones are ivory with trails of Black Pearl. I reduced them more and you can see they have gone to a more yellowy green - than the intense metallic look above.

And again, the lentil below was made with trails of Black Pearl, raked, and dots - poked, and reduced.

The effect is not so reflective - but the reaction with the ivory is quite striking. I should try an ivory + exotic twisty.

I was really pleased with the first two spacers. I think it might be very easy to over reduce this colour and wind up with a more hazy look. Reduce it with a "get in and get out again" approach. I actually didn't go back to a neutral flame after - I put them directly in the kiln - not sure if that makes a difference - as generally, with a reduction glass - that un-reduces it. Spose I should at least try it!

Update on TAG Black Cherry

Ha - just as I suspected - another run through the kiln brought out more colour in these three beads. Interestingly - the smallest - the one that is just Black Cherry - came out the darkest.

I put these in the kiln cold, and just turned it on. It takes my kiln about 20 minutes to come up to 940. I haven't had any problems bringing annealed beads up to that temperature at that speed. (For that matter, if I have unannealed "demo" beads - that have cooled to room temp just sitting out on the rod rest - so people can see what they look like cooled down - I will throw those in the kiln before I start the next annealing cycle. If they survive that, which they do if they are small enough - they are good to go. If not - well - they were just demo beads anyway.)

Anyhoo - I turned the kiln on about 9 pm, and torched till midnight, and then set the kiln to ramp down. So these got about another 2.5 hours at 940, then another 8 hour ramp down.

These blushed up to a nice Black Cherry Red! (Compare to the last post.) Mmmm - black cherries. Black Cherry ice cream. mmmmmm.

TAG 104 - 06 Black Cherry

Trautman Art Glass - Black Cherry. This is a kiln-striking red - which means that it goes red in the kiln - after you make the bead. How red it goes - in the case of this particular glass - varies with how long you leave it in the kiln.

The working notes from the Trautman Art Glass site state:

This glass comes transparent, but kiln-strikes into a super-dark antique ruby red. Can be reduced. Work cool or heat your bead back to transparency at the end of your flame working time, to prevent it from getting "muddy."

(I haven't tried reducing it, yet. I also find no trace of muddiness - which is gratifying.)

Trust me - I didn't work this stuff cool. On the other hand - I didn't have to heat it back to clear, either - it just looked clear the entire time I worked it. But I didn't particularly super heat it either. I just made a gather and wound off a bead.

The first pic - the bead on the left is self-coloured (only Black Cherry - by the way - self-coloured is a term from my doggy life - meaning all one solid colour - in case that's been confusing you.) The middle bead had a clear core (I was worried about these getting to be too dark!) and the right hand bead is encased with clear. They are all pretty consistent for colour. The larger one is darker because it has more coloured glass.

Additional working notes for Black Cherry from TAG continue to explain that the colour deepens with the length of time spent in the kiln, and with higher temps too. They explain that in order to get the colour you want, do a test bead and put it in the kiln and garage it, and check it every 10 mins until you get the colour you want, and then run your annealing schedule. As the bead continues to strike duringing annealing - you may then want to adjust the garaging time - in order to have the bead come out exactly as you want it.

This, as they say, "gives the artist a great deal of control as to the exact colour" and they suggest making your Black Cherry beads at the end of your working session - and then adjusting your annealing schedule to get optimum colour.

The first set of beads I made, were, in fact - made at the end of my working session. I have my kiln continue to hold the temp at 950 for an hour after the last bead, and the entire ramp down takes about 8 hours after that, the way I have it programmed. As you can see - not so dark.

So, the next session - I made the beads earlier - and they got an additional 1.5 hours garaging at about 950. (I think my kiln actually runs a little hot - 945 is where I have it set - I think it's closer to 960 actually.)

You can see here - from the second session, Black Cherry encased in clear. This is a much nicer, richer colour. I would suggest making these at the beginning of your bead-making session - and that gives them lots of time to develop colour - but your milage may vary. It occurs to me that I might run the first beads through another annealing and see if I develop a nicer colour.

TAG also notes that this glass varies from batch to batch - so remember that when you re-purchase it - your striking time may change.

It's a really nice shade of red. Not being able to see the colour while working it is a little frustrating - and I'm not much for planning ahead in order to adjust my schedule to get the exact, specific shade.

But is it a really nice red. I'm on the fence on this one. Really nice colour versus waaaay too much thinking/planning about it.

CiM 872 - Tuxedo

Another black from CiM - but this is a less expensive black - an equivalent to the Moretti and Vetro blacks - in that it will pull out to a purple, rather than staying black or going grey when stretched really thin - like the CiM Hades black.

The tab bead is a gravity wave bead (horizontal stripes on an opaque core - get it liquid hot, and rotate so that the stripes stretch out around the bead and the stripe colour gets thinned out.)

While it looked pure black and grey and white when it went into the kiln - it has stretched and thinned out to both purple and blue, interestingly enough.





It also does seem to have webbed a little bit.

A useful enough addition to the colour palette, especially if you are developing a loyalty to CiM - which certainly seems to be worth it!

Veiled Clear Rubino

Beautiful! Oh my! Must.buy.more.

A nice cranberry pink before going in the kiln (rod at top) - this strikes a little darker in the kiln (paddle below) - but also has wonderful swirly streaks!













A watery effect - like looking down through a rushing stream - this has beautiful visual texture! And it definitely strikes in the kiln - as this particular bead was very light in the centre when it went into the kiln - but came out a uniform, deep pink.














These are so pretty - they just speak for themselves - but I guess the next step will be to put them over white. Or a light pink! Or periwinkle!

Gorgeous!

The Rest of the set-up

Well - I've shown you the torch - I might as well show you the rest of the set up. ;-)

The torch (pre-installation of the marver) is front and centre. On either side, boards are clamped to the desk as elbow rests. (The plastic bag doesn't live there.)

There is a hot plate to the far right - which I admittedly use only as a place to put my MP3 player - which plugs into the surplus speakers - one is there on the desk - the white rectangular box. Lights illuminate the workspace, and give me quick access to bright light to better see colours in the hot glass.

To the left is the kiln - a Paragon - with the swing-up front door. I love this - the door is counter-balanced to swing up and out of the way easily, and to stay in whatever position it is placed. This kiln is big enough to take a 12 inch mandrel - which - by the way - I have now found is essential with this torch. You need more room to get away from the heat of the flame. A rod-end grabber is also a must with this torch. You just can't hold the glass as short and as close to this bigger flame.


Behind my torch - I have a block of "Oasis" type foam, that I store my dipped mandrels on. It sits on a giant lazy-susan, so I can rotate it to get to the size of mandrel that I need at any given moment. The lazy-susan is wood (Ikea) and I've only scorched the surface of it a couple of times by putting hot rods on it.








The concentrators - all three of them - lurk under the table. They are a 10 litre per minute on the left, and two (further back) 5 litre per minute concentrators.










This is my stash of glass - this is the official, sorted stash.












And this is the overflow - which I am scared to put on the shelf. I have another shelf that I should move into place to hold the rest of this glass, but it is about 2 inches too wide for the gap - so I would have to unload the first shelf to move it to make enough room. You can imagine my lack of enthusiasm for that project!







The floor is painted concrete. The "security officer" lying on the floor generally snoozes behind me while I work. He's in charge of scaring away burglars and making dust bunnies of truly staggering proportions. He's very good at both those activities. ;-) They don't call 'em German Shedders for nothing!

Adding a Torch Mounted Marver to the Mid-Range

One of the first things I noticed - no marver on my new torch. Ack! I can't live without my torch mounted marver - and, of course - the old one of my Mega doesn't fit. I carried that one forward from the Minor - but it doesn't go on the top mounted Mega on my mid-range - so I had to get the one designed for the torch.







Installation was easy enough - once I found the right screwdriver to take the screws off. Which was, actually - a significant challenge. (Neither my husband nor I have the "gene" for putting things back where they came from - so finding the right tools for the job is always a significant challenge in our household. We own it - we can't find it. Sometimes, it's easier to buy a new one than find the one we have. Then we have two. We have 5 hammers. )

The screws are hex-headed - so I had to go hunting for an Allen key to remove them. I finally found some in the garage. And they are in there pretty tight, too.


The bottom screw also attaches the torch to it's mount - so you have make sure you line it back up when installing the marver.












Insert the two screws (bolts, actually - they came with the marver), and screw them in.












It came with a couple of nuts, which I applied to the slightly protruding ends of the bolts on the other side.

That was it - good to go!

I'm happy!

At Home on the Mid-Range

Sheesh! Talk about a tough crowd! It's not real if there's no pictures? (see comments re last post.)

OK - here's your proof. First up - the beads that I made on the first night.
The mandrel in front is a bunch of beads made with Double Helix Luna 2, and/or Double Helix Khaos. Sorry - can't tell you which is which. The cylinder bead I encased, and you can see in the close up that I burned the s--t out of the encasing - although, in fairness - it was a scuzzy piece of random, cr-ppy clear that was lying around on the desk. The pink spacers were a nice fat rod of laucha opaque pink, and the two in the back ground were also Luna 2, but made on the old torch, the Mega. There is definitely more colour in the bead made on the new torch - because, I believe - I could get the glass hotter and for longer. This glass was seriously dripping off the rod.

---

Next - the torch itself. Here you see it from the left, and from the right, against the general background clutter of my work area.

Note, there are only two hoses, but four valves. There is just one gas hose and one oxygen hose. As with the Minor and the Mega, the red knobs are for gas, and the silver knobs are for the oxygen. The graceful swoops of copper tubing carry the gas and oxygen forward to where they need to go.



It all could look a little overwhelming and intimidating - but if you've already being using a Minor or Mega - you can discount the controls for the top torch (which you already know how to use) - and just focus on the other set of controls - which work the same way.

(BTW - you don't have to get one with the top-mounted torch - that's an "optional extra.")




One thing I forgot to mention in my last post - when I fired the mid-range up for the first time - it smoked and bubbled at little at the seam here - where I'm pointing with my finger. A quick call confirmed that this is normal with this torch when it is new - and may go on for up to a couple of hours - but probably not extend to the second day. Little wisps of smoke continued to appear for about half an hour - and that was the end of it. This is the sealant between the torch face and body heating and is perfectly normal.




Here we are - looking at the business end of the torch - the front. (At this point - the torch looks different again because I have now installed a torch-mounted marver. I'll cover that in a separate post.)

The top torch is the Mega - with the red housing, and the bottom - in brass - is the Mid-range proper. Notice it is actually two groupings of jets - a centre fire and an outer ring.





Here's a view you won't see very often - looking up at the torch from in front! Here, I have turned on and lit the gas on the mid-range, but not added in the oxygen yet.










And the same view - with the oxygen turned on. Now, we have such an intense light that the poor camera can't cope, and all you see of the flame is intense while light.










Here we are, looking down, a bit to the side, and all the camera can register is that intense, white flame.

And here, the same angle - now I've adjusted the camera to show a more accurate representation of the flame, but the rest of the image disappears in darkness.

Now do you believe? ;-)