china paint kiln for beads?

[Dr Bill]

bye

[echeveria]

What temp does it go to? I don't know how to advise you on managing the manual controls but as long as it will get to temp, somebody should be able to tell you how to do it.

[Dr Bill]

bye

[echeveria]

Indeed!

[Dr Bill]

bye

[essiemessy]

I use a china painting kiln for my beads also. It works just fine, and I was lucky enough to have some wonderful help from Bev.B, who even lent, then sold me one of her own pyrometers, as well as having gone through the ins and outs of the annealing cycle in a manual kiln without a controller. Very patiently, I might add
As long as you keep a firing record, and check your glass with a polariscope (homemade ones are easy and cheap http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...ht=polariscope) until you come up with your own schedule that suits you, then it's all good. Consistent results from transparent beads without stress marks will see you on the right track for annealing.

What I love about this kiln is that I can just turn it off and it will cool through the annealing cycle without ramping down. Not to mention the amount of mandrels I can just chuck in that bad boy if I'm working quick and drrrrty! I use almost all the furniture it came with, to assist in maintaining those temperatures, even with repeated opening to add beads. Use all the shelves you have - they make a difference.

For a long time, I batch annealed also. But now I find it's not really that much more expensive to garage (I only torch once or twice a week these days) every or every second session. Besides, I really like the idea now of having beads ready to go in the morning, rather than staring at them and possibly letting ideas and sales slip through my fingers between making and annealing. I'm also figuring that it requires much less power to maintain temperatures, once you've reached them in a heavier kiln, since less heat should be lost in a certain timeframe than what would be lost in a smaller, lighter one.

Having said all that, I've just started playing around with boro. I have the same dilemma now that I have to do completely different annealing cycles within that realm alone - and the possibility of having to babysit that first rampdown, but I haven't studied that too hard as yet. But I'll simply keep records and monitor, just like with soft glass to arrive at a schedule that works.

Congratulations on being able to fire your own work. Life will be so much easier

Here's some stuff that really helped me also:
http://www.glassbeadmakers.net/forum...kiln+questions

[Anne Londez]

There used to be threads up on another forum years ago that explained how to make your own controller for something like 50$. I need to see if I have saved them somewhere or maybe they are some updated ones.
When I started making beads over 10 years ago I had a kiln with no controller and found it a pain to have to babysit the kiln through the delicate stages of the annealing cycle.