Misadventures in annealing...

Last time I blogged I wrote about the Devardi Professional Mini Bead Annealer I ordered.  USPS took their sweet time delivering it, but when the box finally arrived I took the annealer out, plugged it in, and spent the next couple weeks annealing dozens of beads I've made over the last few years.  You don't know how good it feels to be able to anneal my beads after having hundreds of unannealed mini time bombs sitting around my house in bowls, ziploc bags, and rubbermade tubs for so long.

Devardi Mini Bead Annealer at work!

The first couple batches I ran were test runs, figuring out the right batch annealing schedule, and with the awesome help of several of my friends on Lampwork Etc. (A huge "Thank You!" to GlassGalore, periwinkle, Holly, Anne, Dragonharper, Lisi and PittsGlass!) I was able to refine a schedule that worked for me.  After my third batch, my trusty polariscope (aka polarimeter) showed my beads were annealing and I was happy as a clam.


This is the batch annealing schedule I finally settled on:
0 to 950 over 2 hours

Hold at 950 for 1 hour
950 to 840 over 1 hour
840 to 600 over 1 hour
600 to 300 over 1 hour
Turn off annealer


Here is the difference between unannealed and annealed beads as seen through a polariscope:

Unannealed Beads

Annealed Beads

The next couple batches came out perfect, then there was trouble...

The distinct line between rough ick and glassy beauty.

Suddenly about a quarter of the beads that came out of the next three batches had rough patches on the sides, next to the bead hole.  I hadn't made any changes to the way I was annealing the beads, and the colors were a random mix as they had been the first few batches, so I couldn't figure out what was going wrong.  I also knew it wasn't the temperature of the annealer, cause I had a pyrometer to keep track of the temp.  At this point I was pulling my hair out.  I hadn't spent all that money, time, and electricity trying to get my beads annealed just to end up with ruined beads.


Someone on Lampwork Etc. suggested it might be my non-stainless steel mandrels creating an icky atmosphere in the annealer.  I admit, my mandrels were old, ugly with firescale and rust, and so I latched onto that theory like a drowning man to a life preserver.  I sanded my mandrels to a sparkling steely shine on our belt sander and my next batch had no more of the ugly patches.  I did run that batch with some of the previously damaged beads, but they came out as bad as before.  I have no idea how I'm going to fix it, but someone suggested bringing them back up to temp in the annealer then flashing them through the flame of my torch.  I'll try that next time I run a batch.  For now I'm just going to make beads and put them into the hot annealer.

Getting down to business...

Whew!  Summer is over and I'm back to my blog.  After my last post I continued learning how to make beads with my new torch and oxygen concentrator, and now I'm feeling fairly comfortable with both.  The Nortel Minor is just a dream to work with and I'm not afraid of it anymore.  I find myself just turning it on and running with it.  It's a great feeling to have decent tools.

That's a CG Beadroller living next to my torch!

I'm experimenting with different bead designs.  I've added raised flowers to my repertoire and my raised scrollwork designs are actually getting better every time I make them.  Also, I've made a few cube beads, which look pretty cool with melted-in scrollwork.  Someone even said the design looked kind of Hawaiian, so that'll be something I have to work on to perfect so I can add it to my stock.  Here is a set I made last week:

 

The search for the perfect glass organization method continues, and now that search has extended to beads.  I'm making so many beads that I'm having trouble keeping up with it.  But this problem is a great opportunity to get more of my sh*t in gear so I have a better and easier time when I finally start selling my beads.  To help me keep track of what colors are in each bead, I got price tags on strings to attach to them, and then I ordered a cardboard box for storing collectible cards in order to have a place to keep all the beads.  When that comes in I'll put it all together and take some pictures. Here's what I have so far, but I only have one of those plastic trays and the cardboard box was cheaper than the trays for the number of beads I could keep in it.

 

As far as the glass rods are concerned, I've been doing pretty well with a milk crate full of 1.5 inch PVC pipe cut to 10 inch lengths.  I did just order another 8 and a half pounds of glass, so it will be interesting trying to fit that in, but that's what the debit card is for - more PVC & more milk crates.  I'm looking forward to getting this new glass but after last time, spending HOURS tagging all the glass I currently had with labels, I'm thinking this next batch of glass will only be spot tagged.  That was way too much work!

See all the little tags?  Crazy tags!  LOTS OF CRAZY LITTLE TAGS!!! :)

Development on the homemade mailbox kiln has ground to a halt.  We have all the hardware we need, kiln brick, we even cut the kiln door open, but putting it all together has been really difficult.  I don't know why, but I just don't have patience for this project, probably because it feels like it will be impossible to get it done right.  The hardest part has been drilling through the box from the top to install the element support wire.  We broke two drill bits.  Yeah, they're crappy drill bits from Harbor Freight, but after spending all day slaving over the kiln then having this happen, I just threw up my hands in disgust.  Every step just felt harder than it should have been.  Luckily, we didn't spend a lot of money, just $12 for the mailbox and a few bucks for the hardware.  I don't like to give up on projects, but I truly believe this mailbox kiln has me beat.

So, what do we do when we can't make something?  We either do without -- which has become impossible because my bead-breakage rate has increased now that I'm making more complicated beads -- or we pull out the debit card and buy something:  Devardi's Professional Mini Bead Annealer.  Looks like a god-send, I'm really looking forward to it.  It's a curling iron warmer that has some extra electronics added to it to help you control the temperature and bring the temp of your beads down slowly enough to anneal them.  Priced at $76 (plus $15 shipping), it seems too good to be true, but I bought one and I'm going to make it work for me.