Besides catching up on some sleep this long weekend, it was high time I put the new large clamshell kiln through its paces. It fits a 23x23 kiln shelf, which for me is pretty big -- that's nearly 4 square feet (and 14 inches in height). The bright and shiny kiln was just waiting for me to get it programmed and press START.
Yesterday I spent about an hour cutting 1x3 strips of ripple dichroic glass with either clear or black backgrounds, for some cool pendants. These are simple and effective and fun to do. Besides, it would also give me an idea of how my kiln works from a mapping perspective (were there hot or colder spots throughout the shelf). I was grateful to learn that the kiln heats evenly. That learning didn't come without a little bit of trepidation!
I filled up the kiln shelf, got everything ready, closed the kiln down, and fired up my program which would slowly bring the glass up to 1450, then ease it back down from a full fuse. The clicking of relays was happening, the temperatures were going up and up! Just how they are supposed to! Yay! The kiln got to 920 about 4 in the afternoon and never seemed to get any higher. It was at 940 after 9:00 p.m., not nearly hot enough, and I shut the kiln down. It should not take over 9 hours to get up to temperature. I would deal with it in the morning...
All night I kept thinking -- is it just the lid elements that are working? If that's the case, it's not nearly enough to bring a kiln that size to fusing temperatures. What if it were broken? It's simply way too enormous to ship back for repair. Where does someone get on-site kiln repair? The thoughts kept swirling, but I had a plan for the morning.
At 8:30 this morning I found that the kiln was still at 220 degrees (while turned off) -- pretty good insulation! There was a PF on the controller display (which isn't discussed anywhere in the book). I re-programmed the kiln from a slow to a medium speed fuse, and pressed GO. The clicking began again like yesterday -- it's a good sign -- but would it get up there?
700, 800, 900, 1000 degrees and climbing. 1050, 1080, 1100! It was working! SCORE! It made it up to 1450 easily, the glass was fusing beautifully. This particular kiln has a quartz viewing hole in the side allowing me to peer inside with a flashlight to see the glass pieces -- very cool! Even with the flashlight off, the orange glow of the elements and firebrick were eerily seductive! It was at 1450 for about 10 minutes and the effect on the pieces was reached, so it was time for things to start coming down.
I vented the kiln down to a 1000 degrees, then closed it up again to finish the annealing cycle. You have to imagine, it's 1:30 in the afternoon -- a VERY warm summer afternoon in Los Angeles, hot radiant heat coming out of the Behemoth, the other tabletop kiln going for the torchworked marbles and spheres I was making... HOT HOT HOT!~ I am so going to enjoy this more when it cools off!
The kiln is now down below 200 and I opened the lid to look momentarily, and the dichroic treasures were waiting for me there. The best part is that the kiln didn't lose but about 10 degrees of heat for the moment I opened it. It came back up to 190 easily and by the morning, the pieces will be room temperature and ready to go!
I would normally use a coated mandrel to make a long bail for the pendants, but this time I'm going to epoxy on silver bails and go with it. From what I saw in the kiln, I have about 40-50 pieces that will be good to sell! I like this process a LOT!
Honestly, I still stand amazed at the incredible medium that is glass. It's truly the best!
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