Well, nothing melted. :)
So far my experience with my little baby kiln has been completely positive. The learning curve has been... curvy, but that's not the kiln's fault.
|
Let's admit it: life is more fun this way. |
The biggest single advantage is the cycle time. The kiln I've been using was made for glass work, and glass has to be heated and cooled slowly or it cracks; glass kilns are therefore set to slowly ramp up temperature, hold the temp for a certain amount of time, and then sloooooowly ramp down. All summer, each firing I've done has taken 8-9 hours to get through. Metal isn't that fussy, but there wasn't any way to change the kiln's basic set-up.
MY kiln, on the other hand, has a jillion pre-set programs, including separate menus for metal clay, glass, and porcelain. On a metal cycle, the kiln ramps as fast as it can, holds for as long as I tell it, then shuts off. The whole thing takes about three hours. Dramatically increases production time, lemmee tell you. Also pulls a lot less power, so costs less, which is a yay.
I originally thought I'd hit the right firing temp exactly right the first try -- I put a note in my kiln log that said:
all perfect! <3. Now it says:
all perfect! <3 because when I sat down to polish the second batch, the piece I was working on crumbled to little clay bits. It
looked done, and I hadn't pressed hard enough to test it properly.
|
At least it's only a kiln and not a nuclear power plant. |
So then I learned about re-firing, and somehow (!) managed not to over-cook everything and err in the opposite direction. Delayed win, but still a W. Also, the convenience of having the kiln in my house can not be overstated. I had to re-fire some pieces three times... but I still got that done in a day and had way more control than I'd have had with the previous kiln. I'm sure no one's shocked to hear that in Monique-world, more control = more happy.
I keep threatening to post pics of, y'know, Actual Jewelry, but haven't. Hopefully that will happen next week.
Have a great weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment