Really its more like 3-5 projects going on all at once. I'm in the process of revamping my little Hot Box kiln for about the 3rd time. Been using it with a bead collar and digital controller I made up several years ago as my bead annealer until recently when I bought a bigger secondhand kiln for my home studio.
I was taking this small kiln with me when traveling in the summer. Packing up 4 separate layers safely is a hassle. It had to go into a huge plastic tub that took up a lot of room. Wasn't trilled with the cheap fiber board top and bottom on this kiln either. Despite is compact size I am able to get 60-80 beads in it in one sitting.
Since I already had the firebrick and heat stop mortar in the shop I made a brick bottom and used an old collar to make a new flip open hinged lid.
Our nephew runs a laser cutter at a metal shop so I was able to get a new stainless steel kiln jacket and bottom cut there for cost! 8-D That has always been the hardest part of any kiln project I've done in the past... getting the metal work done at a reasonable cost. This baby should be finished early next week. Have to stop by one of our neighbors and use his metal break to shape the bottom plate and door piece.
So that's what I've been up to and why I haven't sent out my newsletter and picked a new date for the conch shell drawing. I'll get on it as soon as I get caught up a bit here.
I also have oak blanks cut out for 9 new bead racks! Hope to have those ready sometime next week too.
I've been having problems getting pics to load to the blog so trying them separately.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment