Hobby & Craft Forums

I got some jewellery magazines for Christmas and was over the moon when I saw that one taught you to make dichroic glass in the microwave. When I got to reading it, it said that you could buy what is called a micro kiln which is a mini kiln that can be used in the microwave. It is around £70 which is not cheap I know - but a lot cheaper I imagine than buying an ordinary kiln. Looks good - will buy one and have a go when funds allow.

I recently bought the hot pot just to check it out
but i havent used it yet

Oooo, let us know how you get on with it- I'd really be interested to know how well it works!

I will definitely let you know with pictures. But I haven't worked with glass at all yet.
So I can't tell you the difference between a kiln and the microwave , but I am curious about it.
What if making glass jewellry becomes an addiction ?
Is it worth it to buy a kiln ? Or is it only worth it if you want to make more jewellry at once ?

Btw, great news, you can 'bake' sterling silver jewellry with it as well!!

You can get very small kilns quite cheap on ebay at around £100 or so (or at least you could the last time I looked)! I've never seen the micro kilns so wouldn't know if they're any smaller than the small conventional kilns I've seen on ebay but I guess a proper one would be a good investment if it becomes a passion for you!

I'd be a bit wary of putting silver clay in a microwave though!!! Crikey...I can imagine the house fire now lol! How does that work? Do the instructions actually state that this is possible?

hahaa, yes in the instructions it explains how you can do it, it takes about 5 minutes (just like the glass btw) and you can peak in the mean time if it aready melts in the "kiln"

I was curious last night so had a look around and I'm really surprised that you can fire silver clay in them! I'm impressed and may well invest in one myself when I can afford it! I'd love to have a go at fusing and make my own dichroic beads- they're sooooo expensive to buy! fingerprint jewellery is another thing I'd love to have a go at too but soap is the next thing on the list so I guess it'll have to wait-I've been swearing since last Christmas that I'd have a go at soapmaking but like everything else this year, it's been put on the back burner because of other things!

[quote="Nickie"] I'd love to have a go at fusing and make my own dichroic beads[/quote]
Could you make beads in the hot pot ?
I was only thinking about pendants
I thought beadmaking could only with a torch for beads ?

And yes fingerprints are awesome!
All kinds of creations with silverclay are great, i am thinking about a combination with resin and silverclay I love colored blingbling
But buying silverclay is for later , first soapmaking and then some glass jewels

mmm, i cant edit my post

Yes, some of the other members have said they can't edit their posts either- it's something I'm going to get Shaun (my techy guy) to look into asap!

I'm not sure if you can make dichroic beads in a hot pot as I've never even tried one but I do know that you can get a kind of fire proof string (I don't know the technical/proper name for it) which you can create holes with. I'm not sure if use the same method for beads but I do know that they use it for making holes for slider pendants etc. I was watching a video of it somewhere the other night. youtube is always a great place to start for stuff like that!