Fixing the Kiln

My bead kiln has been shutting off randomly during a work session, so I'm replacing the relay.

Here's the opened side of the bead kiln. The relay is the black box at the bottom:

playing with electronics

I tried to read the part number on the back of the relay with a little piece of mirror, but that idea was a fail, ha ha! After some wrangling with the connectors, the relay came out easily enough. I hope the new one solves the problem.

Have you ever had a Glass Hive kiln relay fail? If so, what happened?

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! :)

Silver Glass Crystal Beads

Good evening bead and jewelry lovers!
I'd like to share a few beads I've made this past week, but before I do, I just need to say one more time I LOVE MY NEW KILN!!! I look forward to torching just to use it. The old kiln I was using was my very first bead kiln. I bought it in 1998. It was one of the first kilns designed specifically for beads, called the Toaster Kiln, made by Brian Kerkvliet and sold by Frantz. Kiln manufacturers have really improved on the game since then. This new kiln from The Glass Hive is like a luxury Cadillac SUV compared to the old Datsun 210 of a Toaster kiln! If you've never seen a Glass Hive kiln, click on this link --> The Glass Hive and check them out!
And now, to the beads...

These sets were made for a custom order. This first set uses Ekho:These are Luna:These are Triton and Kronos:All of the beads were encased with Aether clear and formed with the crystal press.

My customer had actually asked me to make her some Luna crystals based on this set (below) I'd made for her before, but I couldn't do it for the life of me! The Luna crystals pictured above as you can see turned out dark blue! The difference is that my skills have changed with Luna and I can strike it better now. But is it really better? This older set is actually more colorful. Try as I might, I could not undo my skills to make poorly struck beads. Ha!
I have more stuff I could blab on about, but this post is already getting long. I'll have to come back tomorrow and show you what else I've been up to.
Cheerio!

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.

Pancakes in the Oven

Pancakes, yum! Love pancakes! Hot on a plate with butter and maple syrup.

I had pancakes for breakfast this morning. Not the edible kind of pancakes though... I'm talking about "pancake beads" in the kiln.

You know when you make pancakes, the first one is usually not that great? Maybe it's pale, it soaked up too much cooking oil, something just isn't perfect about it? Well it's the same thing with beadmaking for me. When I torch for the first time after being gone for a few days, the first couple of beads are always my "pancake" beads. They don't turn out that great because I'm just warming up, like a pancake griddle.

I've been away from the torch for a couple of weeks now since my kiln died. I'm ordering a new Glass Hive kiln, and while it's being made, they've kindly sent me a loaner to use!

Last night I fired it up and made beads. It was great fun, but I was so out of practice after being away for a few weeks that I made a whole kiln full of pancakes. That's all right though. It's kind of a blessing that none were that great, because when I took them out of the kiln this morning, almost every single one had a kiln mark!!!! Kiln marks are those dreadful rough spots that can happen when you put a bead into the kiln when it's still too molten, and it gets the imprint of the kiln floor. I guess this kiln runs a little differently than my old kiln. I'll be back to beadmaking again tonight for another test run.

Have a good weekend!

Sea Storm Bead Set

While I wait for parts for my kiln to arrive, I've listed a set of beads I made last week before the kiln went on the fritz. I love purple and wanted to have that color in this set, so I started with a base of Psyche. I added Kronos2 frit and layers of clear and swirled the colors together. Psyche tends to lose it's reduction after it's encased and heated a lot, so as I was making these beads the transparent purple color of the Psyche came back.
Here's the set, "Sea Storm" on Etsy:Regarding life with a broken kiln...
When you have something you love to do that is your passion, it's torture to be unable to do it! For a couple of days after the kiln broke I sat in my studio and felt sad and lost. I quickly realized that wasn't getting me anywhere. I had to create something! You know that feeling?

I've thought of a few things now that I can do. For starters I've been cleaning out my garage/studio. I've also been going through my extra beads and putting together mixed sets that I'll be starting to list on Etsy today. I have a ton of extra beads that are great quality, they're just odd beads from other sets or experimental designs. It's been fun to go through them and put groups of them together. I like the way these orphan sets are turning out, and I'll have some photos in my next post. Another thing I'll be trying in my extra time is making videos of me at the torch. (I can torch, I just won't be able to anneal any beads I make). I'm going to employ my 15-year-old YouTube-savvy daughter to teach me how to edit and post videos.

The replacement parts I've ordered for the kiln might arrive today, but I'm beginning to lose hope that the kiln can be easily fixed. I think I need a whole new element made, and I can't figure out how to remove the old element from the kiln. Honestly what I need and want is a new, more energy-efficient and better kiln. I went searching for kilns yesterday online and now I'm completely lusting after the GlassHive kiln! I'm totally ruined now that I've seen that kiln. I have to have it. Forget about fixing the old kiln! :-D

Well, I'm working on it, I'm determined, I will have this GlassHive kiln one way or another... just gotta raise $750! And maybe in the meantime I can rig this old kiln to run a few more cycles, if I can get the replacement parts to work.
Peace and love bead peeps!

Kiln Done Broke

Baaahhh waaaahhh boooo hooo!!!Warmed up the kiln the other night, sat down and lit the torch, then noticed the temperature in the kiln was dropping fast!

I shut off the torch, checked the controller, the relay, everything seemed to be working fine, but the elements would not heat up.

When the kiln cooled down, I opened the side to look at the wires. One wire was burnt all the way through!The white circle in the photo is a ceramic insulator where the wire connects through to an element. Now I know the source of the burning electrical smell I've been smelling in the studio the past few weeks! Omg!!!

I'm going to blame this on my ex-boyfriend! I'll admit he had the best of intentions last year when he changed an aging wire in the kiln, but he must have replaced it with a standard hardware store wire and connectors, not the special high-temperature wire and stainless steel connectors that a kiln requires. I'm surprised it lasted this long.

Monday morning I'm going to talk to a kiln part place in Connecticut that I found online. I'm hoping they can sell me the parts I need, and I can re-connect the whosie-whatchit to the whatcha-ma-callit. Electronics is not my forte.

One thing my ex told me last year when he opened the kiln, showed me these wires and *so kindly* changed an old one, is that this electrical system is very simple, basic and easy to understand. He was right. There's nothing fancy or complex about this system. I know I can fix it.

Until then, I guess I'll be bringing you more posts about my cat.

Triton Focal Bead

Here's my favorite focal bead of late, made with Triton, some Kronos frit, and clear. It's in my Etsy shop:I don't often make focal beads these days, but when I feel inspired to make one and it turns out nice I'm really happy.

I think the reason I don't make focal beads much is because of a decision I made about a year ago. I decided that for the amount of time I spend on a focal - 15 minutes to an hour - the same number of minutes could be spent making 2-5 smaller beads. (I obsess over business details sometimes!) With a focal, if something messes up in the design that I can't fix, there goes 20 minutes or more plus all the glass right into the bead orphanage. Instead I could make small beads, and if one messes up, then I've only lost 5 minutes and a tiny bit of glass. Or, I can cover over the top of the messed up small bead and make a bigger bead or focal out of it. It works out that the percentage of good beads coming out of the kiln the next day is much higher when I make small beads.

What I like a lot about making focal beads is the large surface area I have to work with and the possibility of a more complex design. Also an issue is kiln space. If I'm making large focals all day, I always have enough kiln space for the whole torch session. With small beads, I can work for about 4 hours tops before the kiln is full.

This reminds me to check back on Lampwork, Etc., where someone mentioned they have a technique for packing more beads in the kiln. I'd love to know if anyone has any brilliant ideas they could share on this!

Musings on the Mysteries of Pandora

Fellow lampworker and blogger Sue shared her experience with Pandora in a comment on my last post. Thanks, Sue! Here's her comment:

"They turned out really dark, probably because they were in there for a while. I guess I have to use it last before I start the soak and ramp down. I put it over steel gray trans. and amber trans. and it turned out yuck! So, I guess plain or over opaque, and do them last instead of first...we'll see. Looks like you are the MASTER of pandora!!!!"

(I don't know about the "master of pandora" part! :-D )

I think the transparent amber is reacting with the Pandora to make that yucky color. Is that what you mean by yuck - they turned out dark-yuck? Like you said, try making plain Pandora beads or Pandora over clear, black or white. Something neutral and un-reactive.

When I put each test bead in the kiln, I write down the time so I know how long each bead annealed. The order of striking color goes magenta, purple, blue, green, yellow, opaque red [Edited to add: Double Helix Glassworks says "As it strikes it will go Amber - Ruby - Purple - Green - Blue - Opaque Red"]. If my beads were to turn out dark brick red, they may have spent too long in the kiln. Generally, my beads lighten up the longer they spend in the kiln. A short anneal will give dark purple, and a longer anneal will add in light blue, green and yellow streaks.

Another trick to bringing the color out of Pandora is to really smoosh up the glass. If I'm making a big bead and I have room to twist the glass up a little, I'll do that. How I usually start is I heat a blob of Pandora on the end of the rod, mash it with my mashers, twist it around, then re-heat it into a blob; or, I will heat a blob and then squish it down into a cold brass bead press, then re-introduce it to the heat and make it into a round blob again. When I do either of these things, tiny light-colored spider-webbed lines form on the surface of the blob. I think these spider-webs are the silver grains in the glass activating and getting ready to develop into different colors. After I see a lot of "spider webs" on the glass blob, I will apply it to the mandrel and make the bead. Sometimes I twist the rod as I'm laying the glass down, too.

If a bead is coming out of the kiln so light that it's a pale *poop* color, chances are it never struck properly to begin with. Or maybe it over-struck? I don't know for sure. A bead has to at least get the magenta or purple color first before it will lighten through the blue/green sequence. Why a Pandora bead turns out pale poop-colored is still a mystery to me.

Good luck everyone and I look forward to hearing more of your experiences. Thank you so much for sharing, Sue!

Re-Striking Pandora in the Kiln

I tried my experiment of re-striking the pale Pandora beads in the kiln (see my previous post). It kind of worked! 'Kind of' because only two out of the three beads got more color.

The beads told me that they would have preferred to be struck properly during the first go-round in the kiln to get the best color, yet they patiently endured a second hot night in the kiln and did their best to make the colors I wanted.

Here are the three pale beads from yesterday:and here they are today:I could have put them in the same order to make it easier to see, but the bead on the left in the first picture is the same bead as the one on the right in the second picture. That's the one that didn't get color. The other two got more blues and purples and very closely match the colorful five beads that struck properly the first night.

Also, when I re-struck the three beads in the second kiln run, I raised the temperature from a 940(F.) garage to a 950 garage and anneal. I let them sit in the kiln for 8 hours at 950. I thought all of them would re-strike, but two out of three ain't bad.

My verdict is that it's better to get the beads to strike right the first time, and if one attempts a re-strike, don't bank on the results. Maybe it's just because these beads are encased. Exposed Pandora probably re-strikes easier. I must say I'm happy with my two out of three though, because it's like taking what would have been an orphan bead and making it into a good bead!

Everyone has a different kiln and kiln environment, so my advice might not be worth a thing to you! Your best bet is to try Pandora and see what works best for you. And, if you end up hating Pandora and you can't get it to do a thing, don't throw it at the wall - sell it to me!!!

Good luck everyone!