Another Fantasy Question - Fusing

When I was doing silver smithing classes many years ago. We used to use natural gas. The gun had a tube that we had to blow down so we got the heat. A great variety of jewellery was made using that as well as red faces. One of the first things we made was a silver tub to put in the end of the rubber tube. Did not want to be getting germs off anyone.

In fact in those days there were no butane torches as small as that. The one I had for home use was attached to a big bottle. It was taken over by DH for plumbing purposes.

In message , vj writes

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Shirley Shone :

]Place the silver clay piece on a fire brick. Light the torch and play ]the flame over the silver and keep moving it around. Smoke comes off ]when the clay burns off. Heat the silver until it turns into a cherry ]red. Turn off the torch and leave silver to cool. ] ]I had some pieces break and when I went to an expo I asked why that had ]happened. I was told that I had not heated it long enough. ]I was told that I could put the pieces back together using some slip. ]Leave them to dry then fire again.

thanks, Shirley! clipped and saved!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

newest creations: ----------- I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all.

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Shirley Shone :

]When I was doing silver smithing classes many years ago. We used to use ]natural gas. The gun had a tube that we had to blow down so we got the ]heat. A great variety of jewellery was made using that as well as red ]faces. One of the first things we made was a silver tub to put in the ]end of the rubber tube. Did not want to be getting germs off anyone. ] ] In fact in those days there were no butane torches as small as that. ]The one I had for home use was attached to a big bottle. It was taken ]over by DH for plumbing purposes.

interesting. thank you again, Shirley!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

newest creations: ----------- I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all.

Kathy, If your hands are not steady, I would recommend getting the Morton Glass shop system, it has little grids (like the eggcrate in florescent light fixtures) underneath the cutting bars so the shards go down into the grids and then you can empty them out. It looks like a bear to set up, but you don't need all the angles (they are mostly for stained glass or fancy cuts later), just the straight ones. You just need the small grid for jewelry sized pieces. I would recommend a Toyo pistrol grip over the Fletcher. Toyo is very easy to use. A stained glass shop can give you a quick lesson in cutting, it is not difficult. For some reason, stained glass people cut glass by scoring (cutting a line in the glass) away from their body, and fusers score towards their body. Towards gives more control, imho. I would recommend getting a kiln with a viewing window so you can see the progress of your fusing. Viewing windows are only available (I think) in kilns without "doggie doors", so if you know you won't want to do lampwork one day, you can take that option. I have a Jen Ken kiln which a viewing window and a controller and I love it. Bought it from Marty at Centre de Verre in NH. Go visit the warm glass site -

There is tons of information there. There is also a warm glass weekend coming up in Corning, NY in September. Please feel free to email me privately if you need any help. I use Bullseye 90 coe glass and compatible dichroic glass almost exclusively because of the wide variety of colors Bullseye makes. Just gorgeous. Patti

Rio Grande, who has pioneered the use of PMC (not ArtClay) in the US, markets a modified Blazer Butane Microtorch as part of a kit for torch firing PMC projects. The description says it "provides a softened flame calibrated to produce the heat and flame necessary to properly cure small items made of PMC." It also says the modified flame is not suitable for soldering tasks. It runs on 9 ounce butane cartridges. From the picture in their catalog, I'd say this is the torch I saw someone using in a demo at Embellishment several years ago. BTW - this PMC torch kit includes a perforated ceramic pad, a metal stand for the pad and the torch for $74.95. The butane cartridges are available separately.

HTH!

Mj

Oh, gawd -- I gotta lie down now. Whew.

~~ Sooz

------- "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you rattle your jewelry." John Lennon (1940 - 1980) Royal Varieties Performance ~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links

It's a lot simpler than it sounded, Sooz! Sorry I tired you out. ;o)

Mj

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "roxan" :

]I do silversmithing and the only little torch we use is a water torch and it ]will not do big pieces only small soldering for prongs and bails etc. I ]would love to know what kind of torch he is using to do pins or pendants. If ]you find out what it is post it.

will do. i'm hoping she contacts me soon. if not, i'll get her information from the club and contact her.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

newest creations: ----------- I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all.

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Mj" :

]BTW - this PMC torch kit includes a ]perforated ceramic pad, a metal stand for the pad and the torch for $74.95. ]The butane cartridges are available separately.

cool - thanks. more info for my files!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

newest creations: ----------- I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all.

What is a water torch?

Tina

It is a very small torch that run on water. It is expensive to buy but cheap to run. It uses low voltage electricity to dissociate distilled water into hydrogen and oxygen gases it has a very hot flame for concentrated jobs. Roxan

I may have to do another search and see what I can come up with. I also need to go to the hardware store and find out just exactly what a hot head torch is. I am thinking they are just a regular torch plumbers use to sweat pipes? I know I am probably wrong.>

not the same -- Hot Head has a venturi system to bring more air into it -- there is on on ebay

1&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW of course - then I see that they have the Bethlehem Barracuda -- which is enough to make this woman drool... LOL but I haven't got $650 for a new torch... Cheryl last semester of lawschool! yipee! DRAGON BEADS Flameworked beads and glass

~~ Sooz

------- "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you rattle your jewelry." John Lennon (1940 - 1980) Royal Varieties Performance ~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links

I bet you've had lots of answers by now (I'm not anywhere close to being caught up... I think I'm about 700 messages behind right now) but you can start up for under a thousand. It does get easier if you have more to spend though, because of course things like a digital controller eat up a chunk of your budget, and it's easier if you have one. However, I have never had a digital controller on my fusing kiln, and I get by fine. I want one, but I can live without it. You don't have to be sitting in the same room as your kiln, as long as you don't leave or go to bed with it on! A garage is ideal, because of the concrete floor. I turn mine on with the lid open a bit, leave for half an hour, come back and close the lid, leave for an hour, come back and check it, and generally by then it's time to open the lid wide to drop the temp down to around 1200, the close the lid again, turn it off, unplug it, and let it cool for a day and a half. It's a lot easier to deal without a digital controller if you have a big firebrick kiln that holds a lot of heat for a long time... you can just turn it off, and it drops so slowly through the annealing temperatures that no controller is needed to slow the process, if you're doing pieces less than an inch thick.

Yes, it's easy to make pendants. Yes, there are molds. Yes, you can fuse metal directly into your piece. Yes, some small bead kilns (the Jen-Ken bead annealer/fusing kiln) will work beautifully. Check out cdvkiln.com, they're wonderful.

So you spend about $600 getting your kiln delivered to your door... you need shelf wash ($8) glass ($as much as you wanna spend!) and a cutter ($15) plus pliers ($20) and... well I guess that's about it, to get started! A couple of pieces of steel wire (I use old mandrels, cut into thirds... my mandrels are welding rod I get for $5/lb) dipped into a slurry of shelf wash will hold places open for holes. You can get as fancy as you want from there. Check out there is a mind-boggling amount of info there. Hope that was useful!

-Kalera

Kathy N-V wrote: