Stephani Stephenson on tue 19 dec 00
The main tip I have to offer, is scale down your tongs and reducing
chamber to fit the small size of the job!
I use to fire beads and small pieces in the following way, learned
mostly by trial and error!
Put the beads, or pendants on pieces of softbrick , hole or unglazed
side down. After cooling, any bits of softbrick can be removed with
dremel .
Sometimes I'd use wire; using unglazed , small spacer beads to separate
glazed beads on the wire, so the glazed beads didn't bump into each
other and stick when moved from kiln.
If beads are unglazed , or simply stained, group them in small,
handleable bisque bowls or cylinders
I would fire them in a small electric kiln or in a barbecue
Turn off kiln when temp is reached, open kiln and wearing gloves ,
remove large beads individually with a nice small set of tongs. A
metalworker friend made me the daintiest ,best set of tongs by just
bending some stock metal into a deep U shape. They were delicate and
responsive and perfect for small pieces. Do the same with saucers and
with wires of beads. Just take out the whole bowl or wire, don't bother
too long with individual beads, they lose heat quickly . Remove the
whole bowl full of beads from the kiln and empty it into the reducing
container as well .
Of course the first time I did this , out of habit I put everything in
a BIG garbage can of a reducing chamber, then spent an hour sifting
through it trying to find all the little beads amongst the sawdust and
charred combustibles.
After that experience I went down to L and G Supply and bought a
really small but heavy duty , one or two quart stainless steel pail and
then another pail somewhat larger, like a milking pail. Get the kind
with nice steel handles. I would set the tiny pail on a pad of kaowool
or sand inside the medium pail, put a bit of combustible material in
the tiny bucket, then drop the beads in there.
I used a gold panning pan as a lid for the outer bucket, which fit it
perfectly ,sealing it shut.
Also, small pieces don't always have enough heat / mass to start the
combustibles smoking, so you may have to toss in a small piece of
charcoal or an already burned ember of some sort right before you put in
the pieces.
I used the two pail system when I used the electric kiln, because, I
confess, my kiln was in my basement , and I had to somehow transfer the
pieces outside to reduce. Now , I admit, one time I tried running
upstairs and out the back door with hot pieces in my tongs but the darn
piece would cool down too much before I got outside! Material for the
Lucille Ball show, but foolhardy!
So this way I could casually and safely walk out with my trusty pails
and set the whole thing outside, with no smoke and ne'er a clue as to
what was going on. Also if you are firing a lot of beads, you can have
several small pails waiting, so you don't have to keep opening the same
smoking chamber as you add to it.
cheers,
Stephani Stephenson
Leucadia CA
mudmistress@earthlink.net
Steve Mills on thu 21 dec 00
The continuing subject of rakuing beads prompts me to send to the list
an extract from a post I sent privately to Mishy Lowe.
This is a technique we have used on this side of the pond for quite some
while; its advantage is that the beads are all kept together during the
entire process and consequently do not need to be searched for with a
sieve in a pile of burned sawdust!
Bead Tree
For this you make a cone of clay, preferably fairly coarse, about 6 in
high. Pinch the top, and pierce a hole in it so that it can be lifted
out with a wire hook. Cut a good handful of short lengths of Nichrome
wire and stick them into the cone so that it looks like a minimalist
Christmas tree! Biscuit fire and there you are. We find that the
thickness of the wire is not that important; we use .5mm which does the
job perfectly. Because the wire lengths are short you can't put enough
beads on them to make them bend.
--
Steve Mills
Bath
UK
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