Saturday, October 17, 2009

Have Kiln Will Travel

A tower of power! Well actually more like 6 midgets stack on their shoulders. These are the kilns I will be using for my teaching adventures. The orange boxes are the temperature controls on the front of each kiln and the kiln tops (lid) and bottoms are stacked to the right. They are only 6 inch square on the inside. Perfect for small projects and testing.

These are neat to play with because you can fire small project with full ramp up and back down in around two hours. The lids have a view port so you can watch the progress of your project without opening the kiln and letting all the heat out.

I've been fusing for well over ten years and I've never really watched the glass bake that closely. You usually sneak a peak, but with all the heat getting out you can't just stand there and watch.

This is a great learning device because knowing what glass does at different temperatures is critical for some designs.


The bracelet above was my first project in one of the new kilns. This was made with dichroic crackle glass. Being able to watch the firing very closely enabled me to stop the firing precisely when the full effect (crackle) was achieved. I learned how to make this item and bought the finding at J Ring Glass Studio which is my wholesale supplier. Always good talking with Joe & Susan. They have been in the glass business so long that there isn't much about the stained glass and kilnformed art forms that don't know about.

I'll have my hands full at the moment putting together project outlines for my Have Kiln Will Travel adventures and more serious classes for the Chicago Ave Fire Arts Center. Class design will be all that I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks.... but maybe I'll sneak out to fry some more dichroic in my little orange midgets.

No comments:

Post a Comment