334/365 last day of november

HOT HOT HOT. yes indeed. we fired up the kiln tonight to finish off the pendants mom is making for gifts. The above shot is at around 1500 degrees and the glass layers are starting to melt. there is a layer of black, pieces of dicroric and then a layer of clear to smooth out the tops.

I blew up the picture a bit so you can see it a little clearer

Now were are fully fused close to 1650 degrees below and with the lid only slightly up the heat makes everything look yellow. you would not want to touch any of this not even the lid of the kiln as it is hot we wear protective gloves like the ones welders wear to do this.

I blew up the picture (thank you hubby for the new camera I could not have done this with my old one) a bit so you can see inside more. the glass is completely melted together and fused. Next step is cooling down to around 980 degrees and keeping it there for about 20 minutes then turning off the kiln and NO PEEKING which is soooo hard till it is completely cooled. With this size we could open it around 100 degrees and peek in with out the glass breaking but if it were a coaster or small plate no way could you do that. it would break.
So we will see the creations in the morning. Here is the table top kiln that we own. Not big but big enough for our uses. at least for now. Hubby and I really enjoy doing this and its something we can do together.
we don't live in a huge place so storage is always an issue. Found this cart at harbor freight tools and we roll it in and out from the spot by the dryer. It fit perfect which we were very happy about.

on the bottom we store our tools (gone at the moment because they are in the other room where we are still making ornaments and other things) and we keep our glass on the bottom as we don't have a huge collection of it yet. the drawer holds gloves, safety goggles, and some the temperature gage when we aren't using it.