Get the lead out.

It's a yard sale day, and I bought a range of pieces of glass-- little bottles, candlesticks and anything that the Oak Bay crowd would sell me for $.50 or less (okay, sometimes I went up to a dollar).

Anyway, getting home I realized that the really pretty, sparkly clear candlesticks ($1.) were leaded crystal. And I had broken them both in transit so I have to melt them now.

I've been reading about the idea of lead in the kiln -- I want to make a windchime so the problem won't be in the usage but just in the fact that melting these may release lead into the air (the pieces will be stable, unless leached out by acid, once the glass is melted and reformed). And they should be more twinkly and perhaps a bit more fragile (maybe not the best windchime fodder but as I've glued them together the end result won't have any thin bits -- and I'm using not inclusions, just fibre felt to make loops for hanging.

I'll take the risk this time but will be more careful in future about what I buy -- and I'll keep the fan on during the firing. Which, by the way, is probably a lower temp (if my book is right).

Here's what I'm going to try (later, after the stuff that's in there now is done! Before pictures are posted)

Still working with the tiny kiln.

6-segment
............rate /hour .......degrees.............hold
1.............750.............1000 .............10
2. .............500 .............1330.............20
3 as fast as possible....1000 ............. 10
4..............250 .............840 .............40 (annealing happens here)
5..............150 .............760 ............. 0
6. .............350 ............. 300 ............. (note the total time of firing is thus probably about 6 hrs)