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From Paragon . . "A mercury relay is not interchangeable with a mechanical relay, because the mercury relay also requires a mechanical relay to drive it. The power from the controller is too low to drive a mercury relay directly. So, the controller turns on a mechanical relay, which turns on th...

IF your pieces are round and of the right diameter, terra cotta saucers make great damns - I use 8" ones and make 4-5 layer stacks all the time. Secret to using terra cotta: you need to fire it one time, at least 100 degrees hotter than you plan on going with your fuse. This is because terra co...

Don't put it down ANY drain. OP is only talking a little powder - what's the harm? Glass is sand(roughly), sand is glass. We all habitually wash dirty clothing with embedded sand down the drain and same for dirty vegetables,dogs, etc. And we eat a fair amount which comes out . . :mrgreen: . https:/...

You might want to read this post on relays from the archives http://www.warmglass.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41533&p=353553&hilit=Evenheat+relay#p353553 Thanks Tony! Now I'm thinking I'll go to SSRs and my backup system. *Was slightly surprised nobody kicked me for my idea of having...

Ordered a new kiln (Paragon Fusion 7) for my wife's b-day, since she was getting tired of me "kiln blocking" her with MY stuff. Paid for the mercury relay upgrade - they "forgot". But they remembered the custom paint color. CLick & clack.

Same as Jim, I've gotten dark purple-ish when it gets thin, like in a drop vase. BE "Stiff black" was dark green (kale? ) for me in similar composition setting but the light needed to be super bright and you had to pretty much press up to your eyes to tell the color.

suggestion I would offer is to place a shallow metal baking pan beneath the box containing the vertically positioned mercury relay. Should one ever fail the mercury clean up is simpler. Very good suggestion Kevin. Don't know if they leak upon death, but I will consider that. I've dealt with mercury...

FIona - very beautiful piece. I too have been making big shells, using different techniques to try and achieve a realistic exterior - I started by channeling Bob Leatherbarrow.

Yeah, I detest the sound of the relays. But from what I read, statistically speaking Sold State relays(SSR) generally fail closed circuit too. Mercurys fail, statistically, Open if a normally open(NO) type. The mercury relays generally need more coil voltage than what a digital kiln controller is pu...

In my 40 years of playing with glass..... I've seen glass melted half way through a kiln brick floor :shock: The stainless steel mold melted. :shock: I was told the elements were still fine and working. :shock: Always put a kiln on a fireproof surface. A thick fireproof surface. Well away from comb...

I've heard the tales of terror - relays stuck, kiln super heated, shelves melted and eventually all melted right through the bottom of the kiln. "Never leave the kiln on if you are not there." hmm. Kiln manufacturers say the elements will give up and cook in half well before that. I've sea...

To OP - I find there to be lots of COE 90 out there. Slumpy's isn't the only place to buy - they are generally cheaper than say Delphi, but then again, D & L often beats both of them. If you save your pennies and make a bigger order direct from Bullseye, like at the point($700?) where it goes to...

Chris Lowry wrote:Thanks, I guess you should never doubt the wife.

Hey, she doubted you FIRST.

Just run it down the largest drain in the house - probably the toilet. Seriously - you've probably washed larger grains of sand off vegetables from the store.

Some bottle and jar shapes will almost always form bubbles, has a lot to do with their shape. E.g. Bordeau wine bottles(no hard shoulder where it goes to neck) will usually slump down with no bubble - at least at the neck. Bottles with a "harder" shoulder(transitions quickly from the bottl...

.... the tinkerers figured out the process and then wrote and SOLD tutorials and/or offered classes. One was based on Bob Leatherbarrow's crackle technique, and another on Richard Parrish's tapestry technique.. I'm thinking the tapestry technique will be a lot harder for a rogue tinkerer to figure ...

I like forums - the information is neatly categorized. I'm new here so I've made a slew of posts - at some point I'm sure I will go back to work and post less. But I like to "debate" :mrgreen: , so a forum is pretty good therapy for that. :lol: Forums sometimes need more categories to driv...

"So there is life after death but only once craft becomes proud, confident and easy in its own skin. This will enable craft to get its horse in front of the cart. In 1979 the great art critic Clement Greenberg pointed out a failing in the crafts during his keynote address for the Ceramic Art Fo...

Watermarking tip if you really want to slow this down. Put your name/studio/website so it runs over your piece. Then sample areas on your piece(if you don't know Photoshop or similar I can't explain this here) and use those colors for some of your letters. Then use another sample for another part, r...

I used to do stained glass work, then had to take a break due to being widowed, remarried,etc. [Fast forward 16 years]My new wife was intrigued "will you teach me about glass work?" She wanted to do fusing which I knew nothing about and we started with bottle slumping. I didn't like them, ...