Loving Lampwork Beads

Posts Tagged ‘annealer’

Bead Kiln

A bead kiln is another of the essentials of lampwork bead-making. It's a fairly big investment, but you don't want to sell your beads without one. Why is a kiln so important to creating handmade lampwork beads?

Purpose of the Kiln

Jen-Ken Bead Kiln (Click for larger image)

The purpose of the kiln is two-fold. First, it keeps your beads warm as you are working; without proper warmth, the beads with suffer thermal cracking.

Second, the bead kiln de-stresses the glass bead. You see, when a bead is made, the glass is stressed -- from winding it around a mandrel, from uneven heating, etc. The kiln evens all that out and allows the glass to strengthen into its new shape.

Beads made without the benefit of the kiln are far more likely to suffer cracking and fall apart.

Garaging Versus Batch Annealing

Annealing is a term that refers to using a kiln to de-stress it. Sometimes kilns are referred to as annealers, especially kilns built for the sole purpose of bead-making.

Garaging means that the kiln (annealer) is on while you are making the beads. After you make each bead, you pop it in the heated kiln to keep warm. Of course warm is a relative term -- at 900+ degrees, I'd call that hot!

Once the bead-making session is over, the kiln keeps the beads hot for a per-determined length of time, then slowly decreases the heat over several hours. This is done slowly so the bead isn't stressed again.

Batch annealing means that you don't use a kiln while you are making the beads. The beads are kept warm using a fiber blanket or a crock-pot filled with vermiculite. Once the beads are cool, they are gathered together and placed into a cold kiln. The kiln's temperature is raised slowly (so the beads don't shatter from the sudden heat). After the beads have reached the annealing temperature, it's the same process as if they had been garaged.

There's a great debate in the lampwork world as to if batch annealing makes beads as strong as garaging. I won't get into that arguement, other than to say that I think it doesn't matter so much for smaller spacer-type beads. Larger beads may be a different situation.

Buying a Bead Kiln

Bead Kilns are definitely a pricey part of lampworking, but they are essential. As I mentioned before, you do not want to sell a bead without it being annealed first.

There are several manufacturers of kilns -- Jen-Ken, Paragon, Skutt to name a few. They all make annealers in different sizes for different purposes. Two popular lampworking kilns are the Jen-Ken Chile Pepper and the Paragon Bluebird.

I personally have a Jen-Ken kiln with a bead door that I bought on ebay and I love it (see the photo above). Others have their favorites, based on the type of glass work they do. There are even kilns built specifically for lampworking that many swear by.

As to price, a good bead kiln with a digital controller will run anywhere from $500 to around $1,000. I do not recommend a kiln with an infinite switch; they are not nearly as accurate as a digital controller, and you have to "babysit" an infinte-switch annealer.

Below are some kilns from the ebay seller I bought my kiln from, so you can take a look at the specifications and get an idea of what you might need.