Firing Time Schedule

[Anonymous]

 Hi, I am wondering has anyone got a tried & true Firing Time Schedule for a SC3 Paragon Kiln…. I  tried a Ramp 1 -Full, Temp- 810 degree F…..Hold- 15 min….the firing was ok, but I have seen better…. has the firing got to do an Annealing Round as well or not?… I am new ro this firing game, have been working with Dichroics for 3 years now & have just bought my own KIln!!! Yippee, took a while but was worth not having to travel to fire my pieces & some people are reluctant to share imformation…… never mind… Any advice would be appreciated greatly. Cheers Jenny M.

[Stephen Richard]

Firiing schedules relate to things like thickness, purpose, size, work to be done, glass used, and a host of other variables.

Full speed to top temperature is not usually a good idea, even if you are firing jewellery scale items.  You don’t say what glass you are using, but 810C is a bit high for some glasses.

Each time you fire glass it must be annealed.  Each glass has different annealing soak points and annealing speeds.

I don’t know your kiln from a model number.  Giving the specifications of the kiln is a good idea when asking for advice.  I suggest that 220C/hr is fast enough for the initial heating to 650C range where a bubble squeeze is useful, then ca 330C/hr to 804 for 10 mins for Bullseye.  Cool as rapidly as possible to ca 516C and soak there for ca 30mins, begin the anneal cool at 80C/hr to 370C, no soak, followed by the final cool at ca 200C/hr to ca. 50C.

Of course, this may vary from kiln to kiln and glass to glass.  Get a good introductory book, like Brad Walker’s “Contemporary Warm Glass” to guide you through the initial stages.

Stephen Richard

blogs at: http://www.verrier-glass.blogspot.com/   and  http://www.glasstips.blogspot.com/

[Anonymous]

The firing schedules on this site (under the Tools menu above) all include step-by-step explanations of WHY each segment has the ramp, temp and hold time that it does.  Even if you never use the schedules, reading a couple of them will teach you an enormous amount about how to successfully fire glass.

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Paul
FusedGlass.Org
Helios Kiln Glass Studio
PaulTarlow.com

 

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