Buying a kiln - bluebird vs chili pepper

[Carrie-Jane]

Hi,

I am interested in buying my first kiln.
I am sure that I only want to anneal beads in it, so I was looking at the Paragon Bluebird and the Jen Ken chili pepper.
I don't seem to have found a UK supplier of the Chili Pepper? Is there one?
On the US sites the Chili Pepper is about half the price, however I would have to allow for shipping and VAT / customs etc..also the question of our differing power supply.

Anyone got any thoughts on these kilns, on how they get on with them?

[Lush!]

I considered the Chili Pepper but in the end I've gone for an SC3 from Glassworks.

If you want to know more about the Chilli Pepper though, contact Jim at Austin Blue Moon, http://www.austinbluemoon.com/ - he was really helpful to me.


And I think Sally Carver has the bluebird, have a look for some of her posts about it.

[Redhotsal]

Hi,

The Bluebird is probably the cheapest box style bead annealer in the UK. I didn't find a UK supplier for the Chili box otherwise I would have bought one. I didn't want to buy from the US because as far as I can tell Paragon do have problems with their kilns now and then and I didn't want to have to ship mine back to the States if it went wrong. I got mine from Tuffnells and it arrived in great condition and in decent time.
You pay the extra dosh for the rewire (you'll need a pretty hefty transformer for UK voltage), the carriage, and basically the UK support. In my view it is worth it. If you look at the dollar price of the Bluebird you'll see how infeasibly cheap it is in the States, so is the Chillibox but to be honest it costs to convert and transport these buggers and I'd rather leave that heartache to the professional importers. Also the question of support is important. Kilns do go wrong.
Although I believe the Chillibox is a better model than the Bluebird, the BB is an okay kiln. There are lots of things about it that I don't like, tip - remove the ridiculous metal shelf as soon as you get one - and looking at my firebrick pottery kiln it just doesn't compare. You won't be able to fuse in it or do PMC - it's max temp is something like 600 degs C I believe. And you must have the bead doors as closed as possible for successful annealing. Batch annealling in it is fine. It does what it says on the tin, though and is a reasonable everyday workhorse kiln for the money. If you get one you're welcome to get in touch with me and I'll talk you through the finer points of it.