temp all over the shop

[Redhotsal]

to say it's a rubbish design is unfair. it's basically a ceramic hot box with a door and a comprehensive programmer. they're easy to use and easy to repair. we've never sold ANY spares for a bluebird so i'm assuming they've never gone wrong.

Well, it's perfectly fair in my opinion.

From your point of view you are looking at the kiln as a supplier. They're all good points and I accept them and I would agree with them if I were a kiln supplier. But I'm not. I'm a bead maker so I'm looking at a kiln from the point of view of "does it do what I want it to do in order to anneal my beads easily, efficiently and economically?".

Yes, it's a bloody hot box - indicating the fibre insulation is minimal. That means that you'll be pouring electricity down the drain. It's so hot that the first time I used mine the paint discoloured above the doors. I know the new Bluebird is brick design (hmmm......now why would they want to redesign it if it was so good in the first place?)
Unfortunately I have the old one and as I use it every day I am well qualified to voice my opinion on whether or not I think it does the job of annealling beads.

Yes, the programmer is comprehensive. So comprehensive that there's a video on You Tube that tells you how to use it. In fact, I don't have a problem with the Sentry controller but there's been a fair few posts on here from people who have been thoroughly confused by it.

Yes, it is easy to use. (Once you've mastered the controller and removed the annoying mandrel "tray"). But it's a kiln.....how hard is it supposed to be?

As to it being easy to repair - great - let's hope mine doesn't go wrong.

BUT - I said it's a rubbish design. And it is. If you want to use it for beadmaking.

Insulation and controller aside. It's all about the bead doors. IF they are open too much the beads don't anneal. Ask me why? I've done a polariser test with the doors open, half open, closed, fully closed. You name it. If you regard stress lines which appear under polarised light as "Unannealled" then I tell you categorically that my beads are unannealled when the doors are as open as they would be in a Bluebird with the "mandrel tray" jobbie attached under "normal operating conditions".

I don't care what the controller says is happening. All the controller can do is tell you what is happening at the pyrometer. In the Bluebird I have the pyro is at the back and top of the kiln, and the beads are at the bottom and, when I first started using it nearer the door. All I know is that they were stressy. When I had the doors closed more this went away. Yes, I could crank up the heat to compensate. But why the hell should I? It should do what it was designed for.

Basically, if it has bead doors then it's a bead kiln. As a beader I don't like various aspects of its design and function. Therefore, what can I say other than it's badly designed FOR BEADMAKING.

[Robin]

hi

a few general remarks:

ceramic fibre kilns heat more quickly so use less electricity than firebrick equivalents.

once hot they need less electricity to keep them hot.

when hot, the programmer cycles the elements on and off. so they're not using electricity all the time. maybe half the time?

ceramic fibre kilns cool more quickly as they retain less heat. so a quicker turnaround.

firebricks heat more evenly, especially with a slower heating rate. probably better for glass.

ceramic fibre kilns are lighter to ship, lighter to move, and cost less to make. usually, they can use a regular 13A socket.

usally, ceramic fibre kilns have embedded elements - safer.

the paragon sentrry 4.0 programmer could hardly be simpler considering it has four eight-segment user-configurable programmes. watch the video on www.electrickilns.co.uk. the video will really help those people who pray to their kiln for a week and don't turn it on.

we, and our resellers, have sold about 100 bluebirds - no one has complained to us directly.

the bluebird bead door is basically the same as the SC series bead doors - which people seem to love.

we never undercut our resellers and i encourage you to buy from them, esp if you feel comfortable with their service and they understand beading/glass - which i don't.

it's hard to understand how a simple inexpensive practical robust design has just been called rubbish?

thx

rob

[Bumpy Beads]

Just to chip in here.... I have a SC2 with a bead door. Once I begin stacking my beads, and the mandrels are at an angle, they slide out. Well they would wouldn't they? It's obvious. Well apparently not to the kiln designer. I've tried it with the mandrel rest, without the mandrel rest, with a home-made mesh rack, with long mandrels, shorter mandrels....

I have given up trying to stop them falling out of the kiln. Nothing I've tried works. I have an ugly burn market in my carpet to attest to this. Just as buttered toast always lands buttered side down, a hot bead will always land on an unprotected bit of carpet. (Yes I know I shouldn't have carpet, and I'm planning a tiled floor.) I have now resorted to placing an old square biscuit tin underneath the door in an attempt to catch any further escapees.... but I shouldn't have to.

[Robin]

hi

i've asked the CEO of paragon to comment, so i'll post his reply later. they must have made 20 000 so would have thought that the door/mandrel mechanism was popular.

we, and people like warm glass, tuffnells, aston, keepsake, somata, chununga, artclay supplies, silverclay etc etc etc must have sold 800+ and people often buy them through recommendation. so i'm really puzzled as to why this is the first time i've heard this complaint and why so many love the sc2b.

perhaps a detailed description with a photo should go to paragon in the US?

rob

[Bumpy Beads]

I think it would be helpful to know roughly how many beads (on mandrels) the SC2 is intended to be able to manage at one time? If it's up to a dozen, it's fine. I know having the bead door at the top of the door instead of the bottom might cause more heat loss, but at least the mandrels would be positioned at the opposite angle, and it would be impossible for them to slide out.

[Redhotsal]

Sorry Robin,

I'm not really dissing the kiln for being a kiln. As a kiln the design is fine. I'm just saying that as a beadmaker I want the kiln to do certain things. Like.....anneal beads, have the door closed to keep the heat in and not have "mandrel jackpot" like me, Bumpy and quite possibly a few other beadmakers get when they open their kiln doors and a load of badly balanced mandrels spill out on you, stick together or pick up kiln giz from the floor.

You don't think that happens? I'm willing to bet that it's happened to many beadmakers. Happens to me, and happens in every class I've taught at where piling a load of beads into a kiln - NOT just Paragons, I have to say - is a complete 'mare because noone has sat down and designed the kiln from a BEADMAKER'S point of view.

ROBUST? No sorry  -  It's flimsy. A Potterykiln Aurora is robust. I've got one of them too. There are grooves in the bottom of the door where the mandrels have worn away the door material. Consequently a lot of my mandrels roll around. It's only the door being shut that stops them from falling out because of the angle that they go in at. The fibre is coming away from the walls at one corner so it looks like a burst pillow. The paint is coming off and burned. It's less than a year old.

INSULATED? No, not very. I don't buy it that a brick kiln uses more electricity. Brick is a better insulator. It keeps the heat in. You only have to feel the top of my kiln to know that the heat is NOT being kept in.
I don't want my kiln to cool down quickly. I don't want a quick turnaround. I don't want my kiln to retain less heat, 'cos if it did that would mean I'd have to throw more electricity at it to keep it hot!
If I want a quick turnaround I wait until I've passed the strain point, turn the kiln off and then maybe I'll open the doors to let the heat out. If I wanted a quick turnaround. BUT I don't.

Look, I don't want to argue with you - I know that you are selling this kiln and it is your livelihood. I'm not saying "don't buy this kiln". Afterall I have one. BUT - when your CUSTOMERS are trying to tell you what they would like to change, or what they'd like to see, on a forum like this one where we discuss all things glass bead related, I would, if I was a supplier, be most interested, take notes and act on this information.

OK - look at things from this point of view.......I recently asked someone who was very well established about what they thought about the whole sticking beads into a kiln thing. They said, (to paraphrase), "well, you just make sure that your fresh bead is well away from the others for the first few minutes, and then you can juggle them all around in the kiln and then stack 'em up at one end."

So, I said, "what if it were possible to just put your bead in ONCE, and then not have to move it around to accomodate all the others?". "Oh," she replied "that would be great, wouldn't it? But that's not how kilns are though, is it?"

Do you see - people don't complain because THAT'S HOW KILNS ARE. Which is different to THAT'S HOW KILNS SHOULD BE.

[Robin]

hi

i'm not a bead maker, so can't offer reliable advice. however:

perhaps paragon would appreciate your comments as you may well be right. email ahoward@paragonweb.com - arnold is their kiln guru. try and attach a meaningful photo.

it's only by constructive suggestions that any product moves on from its initial design. also, initial designs are often constrained by price, ease of manufacture, box size, shipping weight, simplicity etc etc.

for example: our SC kilns have a lever catch, which replaces the ball catch. the ball catch always seemed to be too loose or too tight. pulling it would often upset your work. you sometimes needed two hands to make it work. if you took one of the balls out, it might not grip at all. however, some people have bent their catch and then complained, although it's extremely (VERY VERY) easy to straighten it. the lever is more adjustable and better suited to expansion/contraction. i tried for a year+ to get this sorted, and i'm still trying to get the quality improved.

new SCs only have elements in the sides, not the sides and the back. this should even out the front-to-back temp difference which didn't really suit glasswork.

most kilns discolour. as soon as the door is opened, or if there's an expansion gap, it gets 800C of heat. not many paints survive that for long. we changed the minikiln from red to black as it noticed less - and that's quite a carefully engineered kiln.

re being a supplier: i'd re-engineer a lot of products and use better screwheads, more careful alignment, different constructions etc. however, big factories don't want to change a screw if they've just bought 10 000. it's not easy. especially when they've just set up a $60 000 laser metal cutter ...

rob

[Redhotsal]

re being a supplier: i'd re-engineer a lot of products and use better screwheads, more careful alignment, different constructions etc. however, big factories don't want to change a screw if they've just bought 10 000. it's not easy. especially when they've just set up a $60 000 laser metal cutter ...

Then they do the customer research before they buy the 10000 screws. I've been in engineering too, so I know all of this argument. The only reason anyone can get away with that is when they have no competition. Sheer complacency and laziness. If you don't have any competition you don't have to pander to those annoying and troublesome customers by giving them what they actually want and using the right fricking screws, do you?

As I say - I don't care about the nuts and bolts, 'scuse the pun, I only want to know if it will do the job. Yes, the Bluebird does the job, but it could do it so much better. Actually - there's no way the paint is being affected by 800C of heat - the Bluebird only does 600C max and I've only ever had mine up to 530C tops. Thankfully - mine doesn't appear to overshoot much - but some of them do - there's a complaint.

No, I won't be emailing Paragon - why should I do their research for them? They should be reading this forum - and then they can draw their own conclusions.

Thing is - MOST newbie beadmakers are baffled to high heaven about what kiln to buy. It is very very confusing to people starting up and they worry endlessly about what kiln to buy. Let's face it £500+ is a lot of dosh to spend in one go and if you have loads of other things to think about - propane, oxygen regs, what torch, what COE, what glass? - you don't want to make a costly mistake.

There's no "What Kiln" guide.......Where do you find out about kilns? Well, word of mouth or by reading forums like this. You can't take one out for a test drive and you can't exactly return it once the front has gone brown. You buy it and you're stuck with it - whether it is good or bad.

So, I'll do my level best to tell it how it is. With kilns, torches and everything else. Yes, I've got a big gob and yes, I am annoyingly opinionated but I'd like to believe that what I write is as honest an opnion as you'll get on here. Afterall, I have no affiliation, no agenda and I am a customer.

Why is the Paragon SC so popular? In my opinion it is because when a few people say that they have one everyone else goes out and gets one too in the absence of a decent comparison chart - there's safety in numbers. It's also price. That's why I bought the Bluebird. It had a huge maw (so I thought I'd get a lot of beads in it) and it was probably the cheapest bead kiln available. Those were the only parameters I could base a choice on. Not very informed and I'd like to think I have a bit more experience than most people on here. But there you go.

Would I buy a car solely 'cause of it's price? Of course I wouldn't - because I know that there is a huge choice available. Not so with kilns.

[Robin]

hi

i'm not a bead maker nor a kiln manufacturer. if i had to learn about every kiln use, i'd need another life. yes, i'd make engineering changes but probably, whatever i did, someone would tell me it didn't work for them. it all seems to be a bit personal and maybe that's exactly how it should be.

however, this was the response from the CEO of paragon:

If they use the bead rest they should not fall out of the kiln unless they
stack them too high.  They can always just bend the bead rest a little to
make it higher so the beads angle down toward the interior of the kiln.
This is the first time I have heard about this because we made the bend in
the mandrel holder to sit about 0.5 cm higher than the opening for the bead
rest.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

sorry it's the best i can do.

rob