some advice please

[Blue Box Studio]

My SC2 tells me how long it's been going when it finishes; I wish it wouldn't as DH often switches it off for me and he makes a fuss over thge leccy bill (although it is cheap to run).  I hate faffing with mine, went to increase the hold time for garaging the other day and got in such a muddle (user error  ).

[lyzzydee]

I have set mine to a 12 hour hold so I can put beads in and it covers most eventualities, then once I have finished I refer to my notes on the back of my WARNING KILN IS HOT sign and skip through to next segment. (all said as if I know what I am talking about!!!)

[noora]

There are probably quite a lot of annealing schedules that work But it's like gardening, everyone has their own tricks that they swear by since it worked for them.

I anneal at both effetre and bullseye at 540 since 520 didn't do the job for me in my kiln especially when batch annealing. And I've added a "cool down at full speed to 50" at the end (instead of ending the program at 370) so that when the kiln beeps indicating the program is finished, it is actually finished enough so that I can look at the beads

[lampworklover]

I thought that the critical part (from Cindy Jenkin's book), and apart from the soaking at 151 and controlled cooling from there to 454, was the holding at strain temperature point 454, rather than below it??? Curious to know why people hold at 370?

My next kiln is arriving later in the week, so would be useful to know for sure before I programme it.

[Krysia@No98]

mine tells me how long it's been going for, just looking across now and it says 3:05.  I guess when you say 7 hours my mind flicks straight to my electric bill.

I am current at a loss to understand how my leccy bill can be the same amount for three quarters of the year and then £3 something for the fourth quater...  I still made beads that quarter.  But all of that is thoughts for another day