Hot Shop ???????????

[SuperThrive]

These questions are for anyone with real hot shop experience and hopefully experience with Electroglass furnaces and more importantly Electroglass glory holes.

1st... Has anyone work out of either of these?

2nd... What is your opinion of their quality? Durability? Expense to run? Ect..?

The non-profit that I am involved with is looking to re-outfit our entire Hot Shop and these are front runners to replace our old stuff. I'm quite against the electric glory hole.

Anyone that can help it would be greatly appreciated.

Thx

Here's a link to their site Electroglass (http://www.electroglass.com/)

[uncle jesse]

hi, the National Bottle Museum in Balston Spa, New York has an electric furnace and glory hole

[Marc VandenBerg]

I've never worked with either but have heard the following:

Electric furnaces currently are lots less expensive to run than gas. However, I don't think you can melt a wide variety of colored batches in them which is fine if you're only melting crystal. Colored batches, in many instances, need the proper atmosphere to melt properly and yield the expected color. If anyone knows of someone melting colored batch please let me know, I'm curious how well it works and what colors they've melted.

As far as longevity of electric furnaces, they haven't been used long enough, more than five years straight, to prove their durability compared to gas furnaces. How easy and expensive is it to replace the heating elements if it needs to happen every two to four years?

An electric glory hole can't be as effective as gas, I wouldn't think. Again, no control on the atmosphere.

Electric will definitely save money in the current energy situation. I'm also curious to hear from someone with real exprerience using this equipment and please correct any of my assumptions.

[somewhere]

I built my first electric furnace about 10 years ago. I currently run two furnaces a 350lb freestanding pot silicon carbide melter and a 60lb invested electric wire color melter.

That said the sic (silicon carbide) furnace we built is the same type of heating config as the electroglass. I love it! It's quite, economical and effieciant. My elements can be changed hot and will last about 5 years.
The electric glory is ok and I have worked in several shops with them. You learn to make it work but it definitely has it's drawbacks. People lean towards the electro glory for safety. I use gas and I don't run any safety equipment on my gas glories. I figure the only time there on we are there working. At the end of the day the glories are shut down and we have no open flame.
The electro glory has no burner so no hot spot. The elements shut off when you open the door so the longer your in there the colder it gets
Ok IMO the electro furnace is ok but overpriced and the electro glory is a bad design. btw: the electro glory stays on all the time it takes more energy to shutdown and restart then to just keep it running. Therefore I'm not sure it's more efficient or a waste.

Lets see if I can answer a few more.
Electric lends itself to a neutral atmosphere and works well with most colors. I could never keep magnesium in solution for a good trans purple until we started melting color in electric. The reduction atmosphere in the gas melter would burn off all the magnesium leaving clear crystal. The fluorine in some colors is about the only thing electric doesn't like. Abe over at precision just bought a Linberg molydisilicide furnace for all his color rod and tube making.
BTW: molydisilicide although has a high upfront cost is proving to be the element of choice for glass melting. Pretty much impervious to glass attack and the life span is great.
We touched on longevity Id guess about 5years for sic and 10years for moly. The elements we use pass thru the crown and can be swapped out hot. Much easier then wire where you would have to cool down then rebuild. Oh yea wire lasts anywhere from 3 months to a year and a half.

All that said my recommendation is if you have the money for electroglass I would seriously look at molydisilicide. The best off the shelf furnace you could buy would be built by Steve Stadelman. He is building one of the most efficient up to date furnaces out there. Give him a call 503-709-9922. That's his cell# and he's in Oregon so watch the time zones. I would also recommend forget the electro glory unless your battling codes but like I said the only time your glory is on is when your there.

Feel free to give me a call if I can help:
Sky (352)374-8777

[SuperThrive]

Thanks Guys.

Mark, I think you've been to our studios at West Michigan Glass Society in Kalamazoo.

Our current furnace is heated by 3 5000w sic starbars w/ 175lb. crucible, but the design leaves a bit to be desired. The door is on the top (heat loss) and the opening mechanics are so, so for educational purposes. Although this design has some problems it creates beautiful clear crystal from Spruce Pine batch, no seeds, and smooth as butter.
In a previous design built by the same person (250lb. / heated by 4 sic bars) the elements lasted 5 to 6 years, we built a new furnace when we moved the shop. The smaller furnace is more efficient and allows us the melt cullet :), alot less waste that way.

The furnaces we are looking at are similar in size (175-250lb) and electric. We only melt clear in them, and seems the best way to go. I think I have just about everyone convinced we CAN NOT have an electric glory hole for the atmosphere reason mentioned above.

About the moly furnaces...
Can these element be 'hot swapped'?
And, what about the issues mentioned on the Electroglass web site (I know they are trying to sell their stuff) like, degradation an slow heat up and cool down (we shut down every year mid July - August), complexity of design (we do all of our own maintenance now), parallel wiring (one element fails and they all go out, this could be a nightmare if you're not around for a couple of days)?
We are mostly a small artist studio, are the moly elements worthy of these and other draw backs?

We are working on a grant proposal for a ton of new equipment. As stated above nearly an entire new hot shop (furnace, glory hole, annealers, tools and accessories), plus new torches for our lampworking studio (we currently have 11 minor burners:(), upgraded ventilation, casting and fusing kilns, and more.

Anyone else with more information about equipment please chime in.

Oh ya, more info about the West Michigan Glass Society can be found here...WMGS (http://www.wmglass.org/)

Also, I have recently started working on the education committee for our group. We have held workshops with Loren Stump (April 2005) and Tim Drier (this weekend and April 2006, there is still space available for the Drier workshop in April, -Goblets and hollow forms), and are looking for other artist/instructors of this caliber for possible classes in Summer 2006 (catalogue is nearly complete), fall 2006, and spring 2007.
Email me at: (avolioglass)@(charter.net) for more info.

Thanks
Michael Fortin

[Marc VandenBerg]

Michael, Yeah I visited once when Loren was teaching last year. All I saw was the flame working studio and had a great time just hanging out for a few. Would love to check out the hot shop if and when I get to that side of the state.

My only advice on renovating a hot shop, listen to people with experience, which thankfully you are doing. I say this cause our recent glass shop renovation at The Henry Ford did not include adequate ventilation. Bordering on negligence by the mechanical engineer and or our Facilities management team. Fred Metz (leading designer in the field) had recommended a total of 60,000 CFM exhuasting out over our furnaces. Instead they installed a system pulling only 5000 CFM total and no hoods directly over the furnaces but rather only over the glory holes and garage. I have now spent a year in April in an environment that management cannot confirm is even close to being safe and healthy.

I'm interested in teaching, I'll send you an email.