Annealer!

   Well after several days of working in the shop I finally got my new annealer ready to test run. I built this out of some parts from a kiln I bought on ebay and new insulation to make it as energy efficient as possible.  It needed to be large enough to handle a days work from the furnace which I hope it is! The interior is about 23 inch cube so with a shelf it will hold quite a but of work. The control is form the kiln and seems to work real well based on the the little test run I did today. Here are some pictures of it during construction.

This is the beginning, the frame is angle iron I welded up to keep it nice and strong. The bottom is from the kiln I disassembled and sits on a layer of the 1900 degree insulation board that is on the sides. 

Here I have the salvaged brick from the kiln in place and the elements in the grooves with a spare still laying inside by the drill. You can see the layer of Frax which is a ceramic blanket that is between the brick and insulation board. 

Here we are getting close to having the main structure together. I used the top of the kiln as my ceiling and put more insulation over it. The brick and the top and bottom form the old kiln will add a lot of thermal mass to the chamber which will make it cool down nice and slow which is good for the glass. 

Here the shop cat is hanging out inside of it! there is a small heater on  the wall opposite the opening and he likes the warm spot. I have the frame in the opening now and about finished. 

Here is the wiring in the control and out to the elements and thermal couple. 

Another view of the control.

Here is the finished machine! A little heavier than I would have like but I will get it where it goes and that should be it. Onto the Glory Hole next and I am done building the glass shop! 

  

A little bit of Glass

   Here is one of the Ring Holders I made yesterday in the Glass Shop. It is about 2 inches in diameter and 2 1/2 inches tall. The color was from some frit (ground up glass) that was picked up on the piece while hot and then melted in. These are fun to make!

Winter in Mentone

This is a painting looking down the tracks on a snowy winter day in Mentone. I did this in the studio from some pics I shot on a nice snowy morning. Hard to paint in the snow as the moisture keeps the paint from sticking. I like these winter scenes and enjoy doing them. It is always so hard to capture the feeling of the day even though that is why I paint, to make the viewer feel what you felt at that moment in time. This one is oil, 16x20, price; sorry sold.

 

New Direction!

   Many years ago a dear friend, Greg Hoover and I took a class one summer at Herron School of Art in Indianapolis on Offhand Glassblowing. While I intended to pursue it when we finished the class I never did. As they say "Life Happens" and this dream got pushed aside only to come back to the forefront now. After years of working hot iron as a blacksmith it is time to return to melt some glass!
   Following are some pictures of the build process of my furnace. It is based on a relatively common design used today in small glass shops. I owe a lot on this project to another good friend Art Seymour who blows glass in Nevada, he gave me the nudge to pursue this and has answered a lot questions along the way.

Here is where the furnace began with a mockup of 2600 degree firebrick around the crucible. This got me the size I needed for the frame. To this I added 1.5 inches of high temperature mineral fiber blanket and 1900 degree insulation board. 

These are shots of the frame as I was welding it up out of angle iron. The brace in the lower picture is on the bottom to help carry the weight of the fire brick in the floor. While the brick is fairly light I still need to keep it in place. The floor is made of 1 inch of a castable refractory put in place to resist molten glass should the crucible crack, 3 inch 2300 degree firebrick and a layer of 1 inch 1900 board. 

Top photo here shows the trimmer I made to trim the lip of the element groove I cut in the brick and the lower is of the stack of bricks ready to go into the furnace. I just scored the bricks with trimmer and snapped the lip off. 

Here it is really starting to come together! The first couple of shots show the floor with the casting in place and the drain shoot out the back that I hope will save the floor should I ever lose a crucible. Molten glass is sort of like the ultimate solvent in that it can go through about anything including most ceramics and metals. 

This series also show the elements going into place in the groove in the bricks and then exiting out near the one corner to be wired into the control circuit. I had some help winding the elements from AJ Coil. they are made from a pretty material called Kanthal A1 which is a high temp heating element material. This material can withstand temps to about 2400 degrees but we hope to keep things closer to 2000 so they will last longer. I am hoping to get a year or so out them before they have to be changed out. 

Final picture shows it all closed up with a piece of M board filling in the top around the crucible. This is a special material that can withstand 2300 degrees of direct heat. Next will be the service lid and then the gather lid. 

Here the frame for the service lid is coming together as I have it clamped up ready to be welded. Second shot shows the gather lid coming together as chip my trusty dog checks things out. The strange hinge geometry is to keep the hot surface of the lid directed downward when I open to gather glass away from me. This keeps the 2000 degree surface of the lid from radiating heat onto me which is a good thing. 

Here we are finished up and ready to test this thing out! I made the control from various parts I bought on Ebay. It is a smart control with artificial intelligence so it can adjust to optimize the heating cycles for the best performance. It also has "Ramp" and "Soak" functions that allow it to be programmed to raise temperature at a given rate over a set time and then hold that temperature for another set period of time.

The green light that is on in the picture tells me the control has power while the red one that is not lit tells when the elements are hot. the hour meter keeps track of the time the elements are on so I can track their life in the furnace. There is a small safety switch that kills the heating circuit when you open the gather door because while glass as we use it in a frozen state does not readily conduct electricity in a liquid form it does. An undetected leak in the crucible could let glass get to an element and when you dipped the metal blowpipe into the glass you could get a shock without it. 

Here it is during its test run, I opened it up for this picture when it was a little over 1600 degrees to give you an idea of what it will look like when you open it to gather glass. This has been a real interesting project and one of the more complicated things I have ever built. I am working on the annealer now and then the glory hole to reheat the glass in as you are working it. When those two are finished we will be all ready to start blowing glass!!!!

Morning Light

  This is a picture I took this morning just before the sun rose. There was a nice skiff of fog out in the fields across the road form the house and I just had to get it before it drifted away.

Naked Chair

  Here is a new chair I am finishing up for an upcoming show. Since these chairs always end up painted I thought I would show one while it is still "naked". This is a new style of chair for me, it is a Massachusetts Comb Back with a sawn arm and Knuckle handholds. Chair will end up black over red milkpaint with danish oil over that. It is from the 1785-1800 time period. I will post another picture when the paint is on.

Best of Show

  Here is a Water Color of a house on the west edge of Mentone I painted that won Best of Show at Amish Acres this week. It was a 1/2 sheet of Fabriano 300lb CP Paper, the award was a purchase awrd so the painting is not available. I will be at the show through Sunday