Thursday, September 6, 2007

A Moment of Silence for my Enameling Kiln.

...

My enameling kiln was very good to me, but now it's gone to the big workshop in the sky...
When my kiln died out on me on Tuesday, I thought I just needed a new heating element, but it turned out to be a more serious problem.
So at least for now I am without a kiln, but I believe in making lemonade when life gives you lemons (actually I like lemons all on their own, but that's beside the point). Since I don't know what to do with myself if I can't enamel, I decided to try out torch enameling. After a little experimenting, I managed to produce torch fired enamels just like the ones I was making in my kiln before. In fact, I think I might even end up preferring torch firing. I don't need to wait for the kiln to heat up, I don't use as much electricity, and I can see the progress of the piece being fired, which keeps me from overfiring.
I think I'll just keep going with the torch firing for now, it seems to be working pretty well!
I'll never forget my old enameling kiln though...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

:(

Copperheart said...

I know... apparently the environment of mom and dad's basement is bad for enameling kilns!