Bad Mandrels?

It's been a crazy depressing few weeks dealing with my kiln problems! The metallic luster has been vanishing from my beads and I can't figure out why. It seems to be getting worse and worse. I'm going to be sending the kiln back to The Glass Hive for rebuilding. Mike and Pam at Glass Hive have been really great in helping me solve this issue!

I've lowered my kiln temperatures all the way down to 820 and tested metallic beads, they still lost reduction. I bought a stand-alone pyrometer to test the temperature, and it was off by 50 degrees F, but even with adjustments the reduction was still disappearing. I've also tried activated charcoal, with no luck. Pam suggested my kiln might be contaminated.... but with what???

Bad mandrels???

She said iron pyrite, possibly introduced by low-grade steel mandrels, can contaminate the kiln and cause this problem. Also, if my kiln has been running 50 degrees hot, that could have caused more iron to vaporize.

I do have some very old mandrels... old ones that have rusted but I've scrubbed off the rust and kept using them... [insert peeking-from-behind-couch emoticon] and some really questionable hollow 3/16" mandrels that bent in the heat of the kiln.... omg... maybe this is why my problem keeps getting worse. We can't think of anything else it could be!

I haven't searched LE yet for threads about iron contamination, but Pam thinks she remembers someone talking about it there. Do any of you have experience with this?

My kiln should be back in a couple of weeks, all rebuilt... I'm sooooo excited. Hoping, praying, wishing that somehow this problem gets solved!

In the meantime I'm going through my THOUSANDS of orphan beads and having a "Christmas in July" sale on Etsy! My 11-year-old daughter sorted through all the orphans for me. She organized them according to design, like scroll beads, discs, spacers, encased, sculptural, etc. She was a huge help. I can't believe she did all that. I paid her! :)

More on the Christmas in July sale in my next post!

Fixin' the Kiln

I've been working on my kiln the past few weeks. It hasn't been working quite right for me since I bought it a year and a half ago. I think it's been running too hot. Metallic lusters keep evaporating off my beads after only an hour or two in the kiln. And since almost all of my beads have some metallic luster, I need to get this problem fixed!

It's a Glass Hive Regular Guy kiln, and Mike and Pam at Glass Hive have gone above and beyond in trying to help me solve this problem. One issue I had was my kiln element was hanging down out of the ceiling because a fire brick had broken. They sent me an element replacement kit, with an element and new fire bricks, and I actually changed it out myself!

Coffee + tools + girl power + instructions I didn't read right because I'm blonde + a cheer-up from my kiln = replacement element installed pretty much okay I think!

Though the element did need to be replaced, that didn't solve my reduction problems. The next thing Mike and Pam suggested was that I drill a new hole for my thermocouple, about an inch above where it was sitting now. That would put it closer to the elements and they said it would give a more accurate temperature reading. I did that last night (with my girl power tool wielding confidence) and ran another test of metallic glass beads.

With the thermocouple adjustment, the silver glass reduction stayed for an hour longer than it did before, but still - it vanished - and that's no good for me.

The next thing I'm going to do is lower my kiln temps down even further, plus shorten my annealing time which was set too long for my tiny beads anyway, and I'm going to test metallic glass again tonight. I also might buy a stand-alone pyrometer so I can get an independent temperature reading. I've tried the activated charcoal trick, which had no effect on my beads (probably because my kiln was simply too hot), but I might try that again too.

I have a couple of customers waiting to see if I can do metallic bead special orders for them. They've been really patient since I have no date yet when my kiln will start behaving! Who knows, maybe tonight will be the night, when I find that perfect temperature and annealing time that works for my silver glass beads!

Have a great weekend! :)

New Kiln!

I am so excited! My new Glass Hive "Regular Guy" kiln arrived! Let me share the excitement of opening the box with you...And here she is, all shiny and stainless steel and gorgeous:The photo was taken before I screwed on the door handles and the mandrel shelf that comes off the front. Now it's all put together and in my studio and I just love staring at it! I did manage to shake myself out of my love-sick trance last night long enough to fire it up and give it a test run. My beads came out great, with no kiln marks or anything.

It's a very roomy kiln at 20 inches wide. Much bigger than my old kiln. I'm going to be able to fit lots of beads in here. With my old kiln I could only work about 4 hours before it was filled. I think I could get 6-8 hours out of this kiln. Another great feature of this annealer is the handles on the top. It's very heavy and those handles are great for transporting.

Tutorial: Gradient Background for Bead Photography

I was asked recently in an email what I use for a backdrop/background in my bead photos. The answer is simple: a white-to-black gradient printed on glossy photo paper.

I know many beadmakers already use this technique, but for those who haven't tried it yet, I've made a short tutorial on the process.

I have a Mac computer and I use Photoshop CS2. I think the Photoshop interface on a PC looks similar to the Mac version, so this tut will work for PC Photoshop users. If you don't use Photoshop, perhaps you can adapt this tutorial to the program you use for photo editing or graphics.

The instructions below include text followed by a screenshot of the step in Photoshop. Click to enlarge the images.

How to Make a Gradient Background in Photoshop

1. Create a "New Document" in Photoshop with the following attributes:
- Name: "gradient" or whatever suits you
- Width: 8 inches, Height: 10 inches
- Resolution: 200 pixels/inch
- Color Mode: Grayscale, 8 bit
- Background Contents: White


2. With your new document open, choose the Gradient Tool from the tools palette. Also, make the background color white and the foreground color black.


3. Using the Gradient Tool, click at the top of the document window and drag straight down about 2/3 of the way and let go. A gradient that fades from black at the top to white at the bottom should appear on the document.

It should look like this:

4. Save your document as a .psd or something that will preserve the high resolution. DO NOT save it as a .jpg, that is too low-res and will make an un-even, pixelated gradient when it's printed.

5. Printing the document
In the print options, under "Print Settings" choose:
- Media Type: Premium Glossy Photo Paper
- Color: Black
- Mode: Advanced
- Print Quality: Best Photo
(Or whatever the similar settings are on your software)

Here is the kind of photo paper I've been using recently. I bought it at Office Max:

A note about printing:
I have noticed that some brands of black printer ink are not truly black. It's similar to how Effetre Black glass is not really black, but a very dense transparent purple. The same must go for when ink companies try to manufacture the ever-elusive black: they have to make it a densely pigmented version of some color or colors. Because of this, my gradients sometimes turn out with a greenish or reddish cast in the "black" area. This is very frustrating. There are a few things that can be done:
- Try a different brand of black ink next time you need to change cartridges.
- Take your photos anyway with the slightly tinted background, and make the adjustments to the tint when you are doing your bead photo editing.
- Scream, lament over the expense of the wasted photo paper and ink, give up completely, and go make beads.

If anyone knows how to solve this vexing black ink problem, I'd love to hear what works.

Variations on the gradient:
- Try clicking and dragging the Gradient Tool half-way down or all the way down the document window to change the length of the gradient, which will either add more black or more white area.
- Instead of a white-to-black gradient, try white-to-green, white-to-purple, or some other color combination to make a colored background for your beads.
- Place the beads near the center of the gradient page when you are photographing them, where it is fading from white to black. Or, put them on the white part for a pure white background or on the black part for a darker background.

Care for the printed gradient:
Gradients printed like this tend to scratch and stain easily. Take care with it. Expect that you may need to print another one up every few months or so when the old one gets too many scratches.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I think it's the first one I've ever made. I had fun. Good luck with your bead photography!

:)

Avenue Beads on Justin.tv

Want to watch Joe of Avenue Beads work hot glass live in his studio? You can on Justin.tv! Here's the link:
http://www.justin.tv/avenuebeads

Warning: This is too much fun. You will get sucked in and not get any work done. There is a chat going on at the same time as the live feed, and Joe answers people's questions as he's blowing a shard or heating a giant blob of glass in the torch. What a multi-tasker!

He says he's usually in his studio nights and weekends. Just click the link to check if he's there. As I'm posting this it's Saturday night Nov. 29th and he is broadcasting right now.

Stringer Pullers

There are lots of ways to pull stringers. I used to grab the blob of molten glass with my tweezers and pull, but that was only occasionally successful since the glass usually slipped out of the tweezers, drooped down to the bench and gave me a very curvy stringer. My preferred method now is to melt two rods of the same color together into a blob and pull. However, when I don't have a second rod of the same color handy, I reach for my trusty "stringer pullers":They start out as a short of one of the stiffer 104 c.o.e. colors, usually clear (visible in the upper left corner of the photo), which I use as a punty to grab the molten glass blob. Then I just continue to use that clear punty as a stringer puller time and time again. It's fun to see the history of what colors I've used. The stringer pullers stay on my bench for years, sometimes breaking, but I just pick up the biggest piece and keep using it as a stringer puller.

The stringer pullers are so colorful now, they're inspiring me towards some bead design but I can't quite figure out how exactly to translate their random colorful-ness into beads.

Yes It's My Mess!

Creation is Messy glass had a photo contest recently which I entered. I had to submit one or more photos of some messy creation in progress. Let's just say I have a wealth of material to draw on in this area. It's a wonder my minimalist beads are born from such chaos:

That is just one small section of my lampworking bench. I am thrilled that this mess could possibly win me a contest! Wish me luck... the prize is 10 lbs. of CiM glass!

Khaos in the Kiln!

Khaos strikes! (lampworker pun....)
What a greeting I received yesterday when I opened my kiln.... my lovely Khaos beads! :( I made these on Mother's Day, too!

Yes, those are puddles of glass.

It's either the relay or the thermocouple. My handyman boyfriend checked the relay and the contacts were all corroded... after just one year of use. Which I guess is normal for the amount I use my kiln. He switched it over to the new contacts and I'm going to test out the kiln today. I'm also ordering a new thermocouple... can't hurt to have a few on hand.

The scary thing is that this happened overnight. I'm also going to buy a special second thermocouple that will shut down the kiln if the temperature gets too high.

And those Khaos and Dark Silver Plum beads were sooooo nice!

Studio Time

I just found out that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday, predicting six more weeks of winter! Well there's actually about seven weeks until the Spring Equinox, so six weeks is really not that bad.

Since the beginning of this month I've been enjoying lots of time in the bead studio. I decided to take at least three days off from the computer. I've discovered that I spend a lot of time on the computer and online promoting my beads in various ways, leaving myself no actual time to make the beads! So I set blogging and Etsy-listing aside and I've just been making beads for about four days. It's been great.

I'll have photos of my new work soon, but in the meantime here's a photo of some beads I have up on Etsy:

Tutorials for Photography and Photoshop

Here is a link to some great lampworking tutorials: Evan and Dawn's Tutorials
I recommend "The $5.00 Photo Studio." Though I don't use Evan's exact type of photo setup, it's a great tutorial for anyone wanting to set up something simple and inexpensive. I learned a lot during the second part of the tutorial, where Evan walks you through editing a photo in Photoshop.

Sarah Hornik's Photoshop tutorial, combined with Evan's, will teach you almost everything you would need to know about photographing and Photoshopping your bead pictures.

If you want a more detailed description of how to set up a small photo studio, complete with diagrams and discussions about lighting and background set-ups, visit this website: Building an in-house photo studio.

Here's a photo of a bead I've just put up on Etsy:

Obstacles: The Learning Opportunity

This past week I've been consumed with finding new equipment for my studio. I'm still working on getting a new digital camera and new parts for the kiln controller. So, still no beadmaking... instead I've been engrossed in technical manuals and on-line product searches.

In the meantime I've borrowed my daughter's digital camera to photograph my beads. She's out of town on vacation for three weeks, but just so happened to forget her digital camera in the car before she boarded the plane. Bad luck for her... good luck for me! :) She's so generous and loves Mom so much, she's letting me use it for a few days and then I'm going to mail it to her.

All was dandy for a day while I used her camera, until one of my three professional photoflood bulbs burnt out! They can literally last for years with occasional use, but mine had to choose this week to go. And I didn't have a back-up bulb. Hah!

I crumpled into depression for an hour, then decided I'd try taking a photo in lower light using only my two remaining bulbs. You know, I actually liked the results! In fact, I think I'll use two bulbs from now on.

The things we learn from adversity, wow!

Here's an example of a photo taken with my daughter's camera (Sony Cyber-shot 7.2MP) and two photoflood bulbs. The bead is for sale in my Etsy shop:


I really like the Sony Cyber-shot after having the opportunity to use it. It's gotten great reviews. I've ordered one for myself, along with four new photoflood bulbs!

Have a great day everyone!

Too bad, so sad!

Yesterday I had both my kiln and my digital camera conk out on me. At first my kiln died, so I went to get my handyman sweetheart to fix it. He'd done such a great job changing out the relay in the controller a few months ago.

As he was taking out parts and changing around wires, I decided to take a picture of him in action. When I went to take the picture, the LCD view screen on the back of my camera was black. I could still take a picture, but I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of! Unless I used the viewfinder, which is practically useless on a point-and-shoot anyway.

After getting some wires and parts fixed up on the controller (obviously I have no idea about this kind of stuff), he went to plug it back in and give it a try. Out went all the lights. I did know that was not a good sign!

I'm going to need a new controller for my kiln, and a new digital camera. If any of you are astrology buffs, you can lament with me about Mercury retrograde. Of course the positive side is that I get new tools for my business and soon I'll be back and brighter than ever. Another positive aspect is that I will be spending more time blogging and working on my website. I still have plenty of photos to work on and upload.

Here is a photo of my Toaster kiln made by Brian Kirkvliet and the Paragon controller (which is the small box on the left).



I'm sure that grand things are on the horizon. Have a great day everyone!

Pancake Beads

Each time I turn on the kiln and begin a session at the torch, the first bead I make is what I call a Pancake Bead. 9 times out of 10 it's a total flop, just like the first pancake to be poured into the pan. Knowing this, I usually make my first bead a color or shape experiment, or I'll try out a design I've been thinking about.

Sometimes, like yesterday, the number of days away from the torch dictates how many pancakes it will take before a decent bead emerges. So yesterday I had four pancakes in the kiln as my first four beads. I almost gave up for the day discouraged, but I kept at it and broke through the pancake phase. I ended up getting a few really gorgeous beads that I'm happy with.

Back to the torch! ...praying for crepes....