Firing of the kiln

Well I really thought I ought to write a bit about my kiln. I bought this old kiln over a year ago and OH and I put it in the garage and I thought I would use it over Christmas when I had plenty of time!

Christmas comes and I fire up the kiln - it being two years since I went on my glass course! But I still had my notes and I have been reading round the subject so off I went with this old kiln. First firing it did the test nuggets brilliantly but not the slumping. So we read a bit more and then I tried again. This time I hadnt let the kiln wash dry enough on my moulds and great bubbles appeared. LOL serve me right.

So this weekend being the third trial and a necessity as I was making a present for a friend's birthday. Fired it up! Sat and waited. Heard it reach temperature gave it a few monutes to soak (three records on my iPod) then opened the lid to crash it down. Wooo it looked as though everything had worked.

Finally the following morning I inspoected the horde and yep the slumping had worked and the small pendant had as well. For the bail of the pendant I used the glass bails you can buy from Warm Glass - it worked a treat but the hole is a tad small.

I gave the dish away but here is a snap of the pendant which I wore out for lunch on Sunday.

Well the kiln goes away for another few weeks cant have too much excitement and anyway I am going on a "Colourful Aluminium Jewellery Course" this weekend so sounds fun and hopefully I can make something halfway decent.