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Showing posts from June, 2013

Equipment Failure

It's broken . I work in the IT field and my most favorite help desk issue is an email that says "it's broken" - with absolutely no other defining information whatsoever. You'd be surprised just how often that comes across my desk. I love my users . So what exactly is broken? Sadly, it is my oxygen concentrator. And quite possibly my kiln too. I was in the middle of a most fabulous set of beads the other night when all of a sudden everything went haywire. My kiln shut off, except I didn't notice till the temperature had already dropped to 300 degrees. I am sad to report the beads in the kiln did not survive. [insert loud wailing and uncontrollable sobbing here] My flame started to flicker and then a REALLY LOUD beeping noise went off and nearly gave me a heart-attack in my chair - which is highly dangerous when holding hot molten glass in your hand . Poof! The oxygen went out and my torch turned into a flame thrower. And that was the end of my torching