Tom,
My suggestion is to do something along the lines you mentioned with
the restaurant stainless pot & charcoal. I use a similar method
for firing my mokume billets. I use granular charcoal that I get
from McMaster Carr (mcmaster.com) their stock # 3190K522 and some of
those standard stainless cans with lids. The work can spend hours at
high temperatures with little or no oxidation. It is somewhat messy
but it is the simplest and cheapest method for creating a controlled
reducing atmosphere in a studio kiln. A second method is to get heat
treaters foil (Mcmaster-Carr again part # 3254K72), this is a
stainless steel foil that is about .002" thick and fold it to make
bags to put the tubing in. These bags with the tubing inside are
then placed in the kiln and annealed, it heats up faster then the
pot with the charcoal so there is less potential for grain growth in
the sterling due to long times at annealing temp. The drawback are
that you need to make a new bag every time you do this and the foil
is not inexpensive and not all the oxygen in the bag is trapped by
the titainium in the foil so you have more oxidation than with the
charcoal method.
Jim Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts
Phone (360) 756-6550
Toll Free (877) 408 7287
Fax (360) 756-2160
@James_Binnion
Member of the Better Business Bureau