I bought some CIM from a couple of places and I dont have a kiln and I've read some threads on here which says it doesnt like to go into vermiculite and people have trouble with the beads cracking, would I be best to wait until I have a kiln ( have no clue how long that will be ) so they can be annealed straight away. Is it a nice glass to work with, I just thought it would be the same as other glass and would be okay but theres seems to be a problem with cracking and now I'm not sure what to do. mostly I've just been practicing with effetre and vetrofond and didn't intend to play with the CIM until I was a bit more skillful anyway. :)
It depends a bit on which colours you have...the gorgeous opalescent ones (like Halong Bay, Peacock Green, Crocus and Cirrus) seem to be the most sensitive, I have found, and some like Pulsar pit like crazy. But saying that, if you can pre-warm your vermiculite then you might be ok. There is only one way to find out though!
try a fibre blanket instead of vermiculite. I haven't had a single cim bead break using it, where as i lost lots in vermiculite. I have a kiln but only batch anneal so definitely worth trying the fibre blanket. in fact since swapping to the blanket I've lost a total of 5 beads in 6 months.
Hi
I use vermiculite with lots of CIM colours and have never had a problem. As others have said you just need to try. I don't make the beads very big which may help too.
Nikki
I put mine into a double layered (top and bottom) fibre blanket, inside a flight case and have never lost a bead. I know it is a bit of over kill, but that's me!
Debs :)
I've alway had problems with CIM cracking in vermiculite too, and now I bead with my kiln on and anneal as I go, don't get any "crackers" any more. I love CIM glass, such gorgeous colours. ;D
I use quite a bit of CiM and put them in verminculite (not warmed either) and don't get that many crack (never looked to see if the ones that do are primarily CiM, mind you).
What everyone else said. I used to use vermiculite but can't remember a vast amount of cim beads cracking over effetre ones, but since having the fire blanket I rarely get a cracked bead apart from discs. Now days I usually anneal as I go unless I just pop in for the odd hour.