Kilns

Diane Waring · Post by **Diane Waring** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 7:57 am

Hi, This may sound silly. I'm interested in beginning glass fusing and beads. My question is: can I use my ceramic kilns? They certainly get hot enough, but are controlled by ceramic cones, which do give approximate temperatures.....but in my reading I see the kilns with pyrometers. Thanks so much. Diane

jerry flanary · Post by **jerry flanary** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 8:46 am

Yes
It's a pain in the butt but itll work. The trouble is annealling. Stay small and experiment to see if you like it. For bigger work you'll want more control.
j.

Ann Demko · Post by **Ann Demko** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 9:25 am

Diane, I have a ceramic kiln with a kiln sitter/cone apparatus and here is how I operate it. I got a computer controller from Marty at the Center DeVerre, one of the board sponsors, and that bypasses the cone. I work full time and only have weekends to do everything, like so many of us, and didn't have the patience to experiment with cones, etc. I have the sitter fixed so that it is a back up safety device. If for some reason I had a relay stick and the controller just kept firing the kiln, it would shut off automatically after I set the kiln sitter for X number of hours. Good luck with glass. It is very exciting and addicting. Ann Demko

Stephie · Post by **Stephie** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 1:54 pm

If you get a thermocouple(sp?) and pyrometer you can manually control the kiln and know what the temp is.
You can get these for about $100 bucks and is alot easier then cones. I just put an 06 cone in my kiln sitter to keep it on and control the temp myself. Centre DeVerre has them as well as Omega.
Steph

Lynne Chappell · Post by **Lynne Chappell** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 12:33 am

Get a pyrometer for it. You just stick the probe through a peephole. You need this for your annealing cycle. You can fire by cones, they are actually quite useful. Start with 018 for slumping, 016 for tack fusing, 014 for fusing. Then you can adjust for your specific kiln. Probably the hardest part is trying to maintain a steady temperature for the annealing since the controls are usually only low, medium, high. If you have multiple elements each with their own controls it makes it easier.