Firing Glazed Ceramic Beads

Two stacks of short posts on a kiln shelf support the 10 gauge nichrome bead rod.

Firing glazed ceramic beads.

Firing clay from mud to ceramic. Ceramic greenware beads can be piled onto the kiln shelf. Glass and ceramics go hand in hand. Firing converts ceramic work from weak clay into a strong durable crystalline glasslike form.

Firing glazed ceramic beads. After all normal glazes usually include silica which is the main former of glass. How to fire glazed ceramic beads. If the temperature goes too high the glaze will become too melted and run off the surface of the pottery.

After your piece has been glazed the light will bounce off the glass making it look quite a lot like a precious jewel. If fired at too low a temperature the glaze will not mature. Since the beads are glazed they cannot be placed on the kiln shelf. But once the beads have been bisque fired and then glazed they must be suspended by stilt rods also called bead rods.

Bead racks and bead trees are an excellent way to hold up your work in a kiln firing. The goal of bisque firing is to convert greenware to a durable semi vitrified porous stage where it can be safely handled during the glazing and decorating process. To avoid stilt marks on glazed ceramic jewelry suspend the pieces on a bead rod through a hole formed in the clay. A 6 inch length of nichrome wire costs only 1 85 after firing the piece you can use the hole to thread a silver chain.

By suspending small forms from an interior unglazed hole you can glaze the entire exterior of your piece for that crisp all over glazed finish. For success a potter must know the correct temperature range at which their glaze becomes mature. We fire our pottery in electric kiln to cone 6 2223 degree f after the pots were bisqued first to cone 06. Ceramic work is typically fired twice.

We tried firing glass in our kiln at a lower temperature cone 5 with american specialty glass and other types and in all cases the glass did not melt sufficiently. Putting glass beads in your pottery can create the most amazing results.