Ok, this is going to sound daft, but if I want to make fairly large Sculptural stuff occasionally that I'm fairly sure wont make it through vermiculite then can I put my kiln on, get it to a round 520, make the item, open the kiln quickly and "pop" it in? I have no bead door :o(
Thanks
Ceri :)
Hi Ceri, when I bought my sc2 I got one without a bead door too so I just cut all my mandrels down to fit in it (from corner to corner) so I had the longest possible mandrels. Your fingers might get a bit warm though if you're working for long periods with short mandrels. I opted for a Maxi kiln from kilncare in the end, much bigger and far far better in every aspect!
I've opened the door to pop in a very large bead( say a large rose) but make sure I'm wearing at least one kiln glove, preferably on the hand that goes inside the kiln. This is usually off mandrel work though so the prior answer is good re cutting down mandrels. I'd experiment though with holding say a 3 inch piece of mandrel with hemostats when making the bead so that you can just pop the mandrel section inside the kiln.
I have an sc2, no bead door, have made beads for 2 years...... ;D I cut down the mandrel size as well. I leave my ceramic kiln shelf in the kiln, and lay the beads on that. Even if the air temperature drops when I pop in another bead, the kiln shelf will keep the temperature around the beads quite even (that's my theory, anyway, and I am sticking to it!) As long as you don't touch anything, and you don't leave your hand in there for long (why would you?), it is not a problem whatsoever. But if you feel safer wearing gloves, or holding the mandrel with another tool that's fine too.
I am much more weary of picking up something from the kiln that needs further work.....those mandrels are hot!!!!