Tip 1 – Listen to Your Kiln

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It’s a good practice to stay near your microwave while heating the glass, so you should hear the glass. If it breaks, it will make a popping sound. You will want to stop the microwave and check your piece immediately if you hear that.

Tip 2 – Hot Repair Technique

If your glass pieces slip or break early in the fusing process, you can use the hot method of repair. When the glass is dark in color and still holding its original shape, you may be able to adjust the pieces and continue the fusing process. See the video for more details, as extra caution is necessary due to the extremely hot temperatures of the glass and the klin.

Tip 3 – Cold Repair Technique

Sometimes, pieces can be repaired after fusing. If you check the kiln and the glass has slipped out of place but has already fused together, you will have to allow the kiln to cool down before assessing your design. Often, this results in a scrap piece, but sometimes, the design can be repaired or redesigned by adding more glass and fusing the piece a second time.

Tip 4 – Uneven Heating

If the glass in your kiln doesn’t seem to be heating at the same rate, ensure you have the kiln in the center of the microwave. You also want to use a microwave with a turn table and avoid fusing small pieces of jewelry with larger pieces of jewelry at the same time.

Tip 5 – Faux Heating Schedule

There is no way to precisely control the heating and cooling of a microwave kiln as you would with a large professional kiln. Still, you can experiment with slowing down the heating process by checking the glass more frequently and by testing out different microwave kilns. I have two small kilns that heat up differently.

Tip 6 – Fusing Paper

I have two tips regarding the kiln paper. First, I recommend saving all the scraps as they can be used to make beads and impressions. The second tip is that while kiln paper is considered single-use, you can sometimes use it more than once. Just be sure you have a protective layer between the glass and your kiln.

Tip 7 – COE

This tip will probably get me in trouble with the professionals out there, so let me preface my comments: This probably only works because the fused pieces are so small. However, it has been my experience that the COE (coefficient of expansion) is irrelevant when fusing glass in a microwave kiln. You should know that I have only fused recycled glass, so I have never known the COE of the glass I am fusing. If you plan to use purchased glass or fancy dichroic glass, you may want to keep the COE rule in mind and pair only officially compatible glass types.

Tip 8 – Microwave Kilns

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I am now the proud owner of three different microwave kilns, so I am hardly an expert, but I have made a few observations. First, they are all pretty similar. If you are shopping for one, you will find them in a variety of price ranges. I started with a Fuseworks kiln, one of the more expensive brands, and I recently purchased the cheapest similar-sized kiln I could find. The newer kiln takes a little longer to heat up, but it does the job. I also purchased a larger kiln that I haven’t used much. It takes a long time to heat in my 1000-watt microwave, so I wouldn’t recommend purchasing a larger kiln unless your microwave is over 1000 watts.

Tip 9 – Kiln Repair

I recently damaged my Fuseworks kiln. If this happens, you have three options. One, you can repair your kiln. I found a couple of videos on how to do that. You can also replace your kiln, and given the cheaper kiln options that are now available, this might actually be more cost-effective than repairing the kiln. The last option is that you can continue to use the kiln. I was fortunate that the damage to my kiln was on the edge of the working surface and not in a place where I lay the glass for fusing.

Check out the video for more information.

Happy Upcycling,

Cindy