fire polishing with torch

[Jane Clifton]

I am sure that this has been discussed before, but I was wondering if any of you do fire polishing with a torch as opposed to in the kiln and if so, do you anneal in the kiln?

[charlie]

unless very small, i think you'd have a hard time evenly heating a piece up with a torch. if you didn't heat it evenly, the piece would shatter.

[Cynthia]

If you are talking beads or small cabs, I think it could be done and annealed just like any bead. Intoduce into the heat slowly... For a larger piece though I doubt it's doable without thermal shocking the glass.

In my early days of fusing, I also learned a few lamp working tricks. I decided I wanted to add some stringer and just tack it to a fused 6" square tile I was playing with. I thought that I would just tack the stringer on with my torch. At first I was shocked, then had a moment of clarity as the glass tile shattered. Geez, I thought, this is just what happened when I poured cold batter into a hot corningware dish to make German Pancakes... Kapow! Graphic illustration of thermal shock at work only in reverse.

[Bert Weiss]

I am sure that this has been discussed before, but I was wondering if any of you do fire polishing with a torch as opposed to in the kiln and if so, do you anneal in the kiln?

In theory, you can heat the glass to above 1000º F in a kiln and then torch it to fire polish temp and then place it back in the kiln to anneal. You can do the same thing by raising the kiln temp to fire polish temp without risking the hair on your arms and eyebrows though.

Bert

[Paul Tarlow]

As mentioned, small pieces like cabochons can be fire polished with a torch. To minimize risk of thermal shock, heat them on a hot plate prior to brining them into the torch. You still need to go slowly -- but the hot plate will get you there faster.

- Paul