A quick tip on annealing schedules that saved my last batch

I ran two test pieces through my kiln last week, one with my old slow cool and one with a faster ramp down from 950 degrees. The faster schedule cut my time in half and the piece came out with less stress marks! My teacher in Austin always said 'slow and low' but this new method worked better for my thick vase. Has anyone else found a faster anneal that still holds up?

3 comments

3 Comments

hugo_craig117h ago

Wait, you're ramping down from 950? That's way higher than I ever go for annealing. I start my cool from around 1050 for soft glass. If you're getting good results from 950, that tells me your kiln might be running hot or you're working with a different type of glass. That's a huge difference in starting point.

jana_hill276h ago

Yeah, totally. My old kiln ran so hot I had to start my anneal at like 925 to even get close. It was a real battle. I just got a new controller and the numbers are way different now, it's wild how much variation there can be. I was getting good pieces out of the old one but the schedule made no sense compared to the book. Makes you wonder how many people are fighting their equipment without knowing.

kellygarcia6h ago

Remember my first community studio kiln, jana_hill27? The manual said it was calibrated. I followed their posted schedule and my pieces just exploded. Took me months to figure out it was running almost a hundred degrees cooler than it said. I was basically firing in the dark. Your story about the numbers being way off hits home so hard. It really is all about learning your own specific machine, book or no book.