Pardon my ignorance, can someone link the bead rack that we are using that is vital? Also, is this consumable in some way? After doing cursory research on the internet, bead racks did not appear to be expensive or consumable.
Ahh, bead racks arenât consumableâŚas long as everything goes to Plan. 
Bead rack wires are very consumable as they play the expand-contract game over and over in the kilns and get rogue glaze. I like to think of glaze as the enemy of the kiln, itâs molten and likes to travel everywhere it isnât supposed to be, sticking to things and sticking things together. If every piece is glazed perfectly, then the enemy stays confined. In our environment, lots of people are learning, which is super cool, but harder on tools. Itâs also something I love about DMS, itâs somewhere you can fail and thus, improve.
http://www.clay-king.com/kilns/kiln_accessories/tile-bead-racks.html
They are not expensive, I have a new one on the way for just under $40. If I took the one from DMS without warning it could delay other peopleâs work which I wouldnât want to do. I donât know why DMS only has one rack as it seems to be used a lot. They are important for pendants.
I donât know why there wasnât a note with any questions and why any decisions not to fire would just be made more than a month later without asking me about it. I had new, never fired rods for the rack in my box and Iâm sure I could have addressed any other concerns if I had been aware of them.
My intent in asking the questions was not to single you out or guilt you to be clear. I wanted to understand and then go down the path of suggesting that DMS should procure a few more since they seem to be cheap!
Sorry if I caused confusion!
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Just curious, I rarely see Brenda the chair address Ceramicâs issue and concerns on Talk?
Just for clarity, Christy are you over the Firing Sig?
Thank you for you time.
Anita Willis
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Nope! Not at all. I felt I should respond to this as I intentionally skipped over firing the bead rack on the last glaze I did and to convey that I have noticed the issue/talked to Madison about getting it all fixed up.
If I had to guess, I catch questions early because I check Talk more frequently (retired). And feel compelled to help if I can.
If anything this is an issue of miscomunication and pointing fingers, which we can all improve on and move past. We are all here to help each other, and we all embody the spirit of DMS. If we didnât, we wouldnât be here. I am more than available to answer personal questions at any time, my email is listed on the large cabinets and I can answer direct messages through Talk. We have an amazing firing team and for the past two weeks most of our discussions have been on how to speed up our turnover rate, especially for the holiday season. As Chris mentioned above, help us help you. If there are pieces that have been overlooked, send us a personal message. I am not currently trained to load and unload the kilns and I do not pretend to have the expert knowledge of knowing all the ins and outs of the entire kiln process, but I am grateful to have a team that does. We can all collaborate and if there is an issue, let us know as soon as you detect it.
Thank you for you input Brenda. This is not the first time someoneâs item has sat for more than 4 weeks. Hopfully the new firing team can get things running smoothly, and timely communication would deffinatly be a great help.
I wonder if peice of paper with date & phone number will help the new firing team know how long something has been on the shelf. And they would be able to send a text if there was a reason the item did not get fired.
Thank you,
Anita Willis
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Awesome idea! I definitely think it makes more sense to communicate directly if the firing team doesnât know how to fire something. Even just leaving a note on the piece and/or when posting that a kiln has been emptied just note that a few things didnât get fired for reasons and provide contact info. Then people wonât rush to DMS to pick up their things that were not actually fired and it will be easy to tell if something was overlooked.
What happened to the 2 bead rack trays we used to have?
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I have been wondering the same thing - I thought that someone made at least one tray.
After many drips and stickings, they broke/had to be chipped off of pieces. They sadly donât last forever. An awesome new ceramics person messaged me (thanks, @thefinal!) and we just rolled out a new tray plus some experimental hexagonal cookies. We could probably use a couple more if anyone has some time. We went 12â X 5â green.
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There was only ever one tray, and it cracked a while back. Managing the trays used to be one of the things that the Kiln SIG did during Christyâs era.
@cmcooper0 â did you pick up the bottle/pendants? I realize that I hadnât, but they were slipcast, and probably lighter than you thought. Although, the real problem was that everybody kept looking at the overloaded rack and not firing it.
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Yep, I did. Thin, but large, wanted to confer on those (second opinion for safety) before they came up in the âqueueâ, which they hadnât yet. We had identified the backlog problem and were working on fixing it.
Completely understand the frustration regarding delays, Iâve seen complaints with firings (both valid and not) since I became a member. What we can do is always strive to fix problems as they appear, communicate better, and keep properly feeding the kiln gods their offerings.
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So, if schedule permits I will try to be up there Friday night anyways for the slab roller class and can try to make more then. Otherwise I will help get some more made up sometime over the weekend if no one beats me to it.
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Got it - I was at DMS using the slab roller over the weekend and if I had known that trays were needed I would have been happy to help. Feel free to let me know if I can ever help with anything while Iâm there.
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Thanks Madison! Looks like my mug is ready to move on to the next phase!
