If you have been following my adventures with enameling, you won’t be surprised at this question. I guess that I need to buy an enameling kiln. I have an old burnout kiln that I rebuilt several years ago and added PID controller to. It will get up to enameling temperature, but it takes a long time. I usually use it to heat treat sterling, cure resin and other low temperature operations. I don’t cast with it or do melts. Can any of the enamelers on ganoksin recommend a small kiln to look at? I do have a table top furnace that I have been happy with and they make a kiln too. Thanks for any help…Rob
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Curious to hear the answers as I fear this rabbit hole awaits me.
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Since I don’t see myself enameling anything bigger than earrings and pendants or doing any of the other things that can be done with a kiln, I may look into buying the Bee Hive Ultra lite kiln first. Any thing that I enamel directly to a finished piece will have to be torch fired. Any thoughts about this plan are appreciated…Rob
I have a Paragon SC-2:
I originally bought it over twenty years ago for heat treating small steel edge tools (I used to make small hand planes and other edge tools for woodworking). I recently began doing enamel work and started off doing torch firing. Then I tried using my Paragon and discovered it produced far superior results. The only problem was that I wanted a door having a window so I could watch the enamel go through the various stages during firing. I contacted Paragon and they sold me a new door with a built-in window that was dirt simple to retrofit onto my kiln.
I now love using my Paragon for enamel work. They make purpose-built enamel kilns, but I’ve not felt the need to upgrade. My SC-2 works great…
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Thanks…Rob
Hi Rob,
You might consider a small used tabletop or dental type kiln such as this. I don’t have this model, but one that is similar. It heats up quickly, holds its temperature and is more accommodating to small trivets.
Pam
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I have an SC-2 kiln, too. I have used it for enameling when I teach away from my studio. It’s lighter than the ceramic brick-lined kiln I use in my studio for enameling, reserving my SC-@ for metal clay. I like the manual control of the b-lined kiln and the bricks really hold the heat. It, too, is a Paragon, though I don’t think Paragon is making these anymore. I’ve been using it for 20 years and the SC-2 for at least that long. They are both reliable kilns, clearly.
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We have the SC-2 kiln where I work used as a lost wax casting burnout kiln (not for enameling). We had to move to a temporary location with less space, so we had to get a smaller burnout kiln. It took a little bit to figure out how to program it. It has a different programing system from other Paragon kilns that I’ve used. Now that I have it figured out though I like it a lot. Other’s are saying that it’s a good enameling kiln. I’m sure it is.
Jeff
I tried to go cheep on a kiln when I started out with enamels. It was to frustrating to use them for enamels. I had a burn out oven, a small Paragon without a controller. I even started with a beehive kiln. Then I gave up and bit the bullet and got a Paragon kiln made for enameling. What a joy to use after all the bad ones.
Go for it. You won’t regret it.
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The saying is, “Buy once, cry once”. I had to learn that lesson the hard way, as I’m sure many of us did. I now don’t hesitate to bite the bullet and spend the money for the best quality equipment I can afford…
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Here to say I’m on the path with you. I have an ultra light, and a very old 3rd-hand kiln I retro’d with a PID controller, which is both a burn out kiln and enameling kiln right now. Been dragging my feet on getting a dedicated enameling kiln.
The ultra light isn’t so bad, especially for the very tiny things as you mentioned. Trivets and supports get tricky; sometimes I lay a piece directly on a mica slice in the heating element, sometimes I twist steel wire around until I get a support that works. It can be slow. But it’s small enough to be put away, not requiring dedicated counter space, and it doubles as a keum-bo heater which is nice for me.
However, if you end up working with transparent enamel, the ultra light kiln will limit you. It doesn’t really get hot enough to get transparent flux fully clear, and red/pink/oranges are sensitive both to temp and time at temp. The ultra light tends to burn them out for me.
What others have said about Buy Once, Cry Once is true.
You can perhaps monitor Craigslist for a kiln to go on the market, or check for local jewelry, metalsmith, it even small business groups offering small grants. For example in the San Francisco area there’s the a Metal Arts Guild which offers small grants each year that are about right for equipment upgrade.
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Rob, take a look at hot shot kilns. The spark controller, (once you adjust the PID) is very quick to return to temp. Also, they have a choice of 3 different controllers and if you check Enamel Art Supply, I think they have some advice about the advantages of each type of controller. Customer service is awesome and they have the added advantage of being cool to the touch, even when on for several hours, which can’t be said for Paragon. I have both Paragon and Hot shot kilns and prefer the Hot shot because I don’t need to wear Kevlar gloves when opening it.
There have been some issues recently with Paragon’s new controllers as well, that take too long to get back to temperature. I know they are working on a update so hopefully it will be resolved soon.
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Enamelists use a very wide range of kiln types. There are those who only use a beehive kiln. There are those, like me, who generally use a small, brick-lined kiln with a built in pyrometer and no controller (manual control only), and sometimes have used a fully digital kiln when teaching. There are those who ONLY use a digitally controlled kiln. There are some who swear by their Vcella kilns (and what’s not to love, except the price. . . these are the Rolls Royce’s of kilns), And on and on. If you were to ask me what I would suggest: the Paragon SC2 or SC3. You can sometimes find them on craigslist or ebay slightly used. Do not buy one online if there are no photos of the inside of the kiln. A small crack in the inside walls doesn’t matter. A seriously huge crack would be a problem. These kilns are workhorses and are incredibly durable. So a used one, if slightly used is worth buying. Read all the information supplied by the seller. However, if you are concerned about buying used equipment, then save your pennies, drachmas, dinars, gelt, and buy a new one. And if you are independently wealthy, go for a small VCella. With either the SC’s or the Vcella. The SC’s weigh about 30-ish pounds. The Vcella’s are heavy heavy heavy.
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Hi, I’ve also been using the Paragon Kiln. It’s great. Got it for metal clay originally. I’ve had it since 2007.
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Lots of great advice here. Thanks for the help…Rob
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Welcome!
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Well, I got my old rebuilt kiln up to 1,600 degrees in about 15 minutes and was able to melt a test sample of enamel in about 3 - 4 minutes. I am not sure if a new kiln will do much better…Rob
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Patsy Croft used to make an enameling kiln that worked great, don’t know if you can still get them tho. The secret is how much heat the kiln looses when you put the piece in, called the cold soak. The PMC kilns I know of use a ceramic insulation that reflects the heat and doesn’t hold it. My PMC kiln looses over 100 deg F every time I open the door and takes a few minutes to recover. That gives the metal, especially copper, lots of time to oxidize. Kilns that use fire brick for insulation, like Patsy Croft’s, take a long time to heat up but hold the temperature when you open the door. I enamel cloisonné in my PMC kiln by starting at a higher temperature and watching carefully for the enamel to mature. Plique-a-jour is almost impossible in a PMC kiln. Also, make sure your kiln has a window in the door to watch the enamel fire.
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Plique-a-jour is possible in a fiber-lined, like the SC2’s and 3’s, as is cloisonee and champleve and any other type of enameling. I agree that the brick-lined kilns retain the temps better when the door is opened to bring pieces into the kiln or when checking the status of the enamels, but it is really insignificant in the long run. . . the enamels fuse. I have enameled in both brick-lined kilns and in my SC-2 and the enamels behave perfectly in either type. I recognize that copper tends to oxidize but that has always happened, both in brick-lined and fiber-lined kilns like the SC-2’s. The linings all recover temps sufficiently to allow the process to be completed. The latter kilns are being used by experienced enamelists with great success.
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I did a retest of my kiln and the numbers are really more like 1500 degress in 20 minutes. I have researched kanthal elements and talked to people who make them. They confirmed that a kiln that gets to 1500 degrees in 20 minutes is a very fast kiln. So I will go with what I have for now. The other factor is heat retention. As others have pointed out, a kiln’s ability to recover to a set point is made easier if it is made from dense brick vs a fiber lined kiln. M kiln is a very heavy 8 brick kiln. More when I know it…Rob
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