Spectrum Nuggets question

[Scott Young]

Curious how many people use the Spectrum Nuggets and what your charging cycle is?

We always seem to have bubbles the following day (after charging), but are fine the next. Any ideas?

BTW, our "cycle" for charging is ramp to 2225, load, cook for 9 hours, back down to 1950 to squeeze (in 2 hours), sit for an hour, then ramp back up to normal.

Thanks

[Doug Sweet]

Originally posted by Scott Young
Curious how many people use the Spectrum Nuggets and what your charging cycle is?

We always seem to have bubbles the following day (after charging), but are fine the next. Any ideas?

BTW, our "cycle" for charging is ramp to 2225, load, cook for 9 hours, back down to 1950 to squeeze (in 2 hours), sit for an hour, then ramp back up to normal.

Thanks
Scott you are melting too hot. I'll check my cycle tommorrow and post. I melt around 2145 for 3.5 hrs

[Scott Young]

BTW, when charging we usually throw in ~ 150 lbs (50lbs every 30 minutes or so - prior to cooking for 9 hours)


Thx

[Brian Gingras]

I just did this at Snow farm...they had the furnace at 2250...to hot, 2150 would have been fine!. After the last charge the glass was ready to turn down after about 2 hours. I dropped to 1800 overnight and turned up to 2050 before breakfast to start blowing around 9am...no bubbles. I was not amused by how fast the glass setup, and my students had a hard time because of this since they were always heating, but other than that it was good glass.

[Dave Bross]

Wash the dust off them before you use them. The dust will make those little bubs that take forever to go away.

[Jim Engebretson]

I charge 50#/hr at 2150 and cook for about 6 hours at 2200 and then slowly bring it down to 1950 and then back to 2000. Works every time...great glass, the rest is up to you.

[Scott Novota]

Bill does it set up faster than the c4 gabbert scrap?


Scott.
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[Brian Gingras]

Assuming you meant Brian, since no Bill answered the question...it's about the same speed...last time I used C4 was 3 years ago though so I may be wrong, but the nuggets were definitely much shorter than SP.

[Scott Novota]

Sorry yes, ment Brian fingers just typed Bill.


The C4 locks up pretty fast. Why would you use spectrum over the c4 if they had the same working time.....


Scott.
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[Brian Gingras]

I wouldn't use either if I had a choice...I was surprised by the spectrum when I arrived to teach a 2 days class. They had just tossed in 250lb of spectrum no knowing how to melt it and left for the weekend leaving me to figure it all out. They changed to nuggets b/c someone told them the SP was going to kill them...it's an open air studio, so I'm not buying the "kill you" part, and at $.65 per lb I would never buy the stuff.

The c4 and the spectrum both gave me problems and frustration when teaching there. Last year we had SP and things went much smoother, and people made a lot more work.

Bare in mind, the C4 is a cullet and may not be available when you neeed it, so I think that may be why people have switch, plus it's a 96 glass, c4 is around 90 i think.

[Scott Dunahee]

I REALLY like the 96 nuggets, Brian. I work through between 300 and 500# of spruce Pine 87 plain a week out of the gas fired furnace at my day job.

In my personal studio, I'm melting electric and I don't really notice a difference between the glasses when I go back and forth. I'm running through about #100 a week of the nuggets right now, but I've been working alone. They're easy to load, they aren't messy and I feel I have good working time with the glass.

I have flipped out at how soft SP plain was when melted electrically (Hot shop Glass and my little wire melter when I first started) and maybe that's what you're used to. Was this spectrum melted in a gas furnace? If it was and they cooked it too high for too long, of course it was shorter and stiffer.

I think my bosses furnace, being gas fired gives shorter glass than it would being electric. The decline to STIFF by Friday is alarming in his furnace. That's just what I think, not meaning to diss gas guys at all.

BSD

[Brian Gingras]

they ran up over 2250 when melting this stuff, and did it for who knows how long before I even arrived that day. Each place I've seen the nuggets being melted has complained about stiffness...this may be to melting it wrong, who know.

I'm used to soft SP in an electric furnace...so soft that I gather at 1980F. Makes for a nice cool feel on the arm when digging deep.

[Allan Gott]

Originally posted by Brian Gingras
They changed to nuggets b/c someone told them the SP was going to kill them...

Fer cryin' out loud.........where do people get these ideas????????

[David Patchen]

Gathering SP at 1980? You must get some massive gathers at that temp. I work out of an electric Stadelmelter and work SP at 2070 or so. It's soft stuff, but I like it.

I used the Spectrum nuggets and liked them. Working a glass that sets up quickly makes me work differently. In some ways it's kind of more fun since you can work much hotter and closer to the limit. But it makes soft colors hell.

[Brian Gingras]

Originally posted by Allan Gott
Fer cryin' out loud.........where do people get these ideas????????

There really isn't anyone at this place that has any idea about running a studio...they leave the studio to the individual instructors to do whatever with it. If you told them it was night, and it was noon someone would believe you and change the clocks.

[Brian Gingras]

Originally posted by David Patchen
Gathering SP at 1980? You must get some massive gathers at that temp. I work out of an electric Stadelmelter and work SP at 2070 or so. It's soft stuff, but I like it.

I used the Spectrum nuggets and liked them. Working a glass that sets up quickly makes me work differently. In some ways it's kind of more fun since you can work much hotter and closer to the limit. But it makes soft colors hell.

Large gathers? not really. I started at 2100 and it was way hot, 2050 was still soupy. It's a bit about the way we work I guess. We do a lot of bitwork, and I really don't like chasing water around on my piece :)

[Mark Wilson]

Bare in mind, the C4 is a cullet and may not be available when you neeed it, so I think that may be why people have switch, plus it's a 96 glass, c4 is around 90 i think.

according to gabbert, both c4 and c6 cullet is not going away. they said that their FHC cullet will be in short supply due to the closing of the Fenton plant, but they did not think that there would be supply issues with their other clear cullets. i just purchased 1400 pounds of it.

[Lawrence Ruskin]

I used C6 for years.

The nuggets are way softer.

I just wash it, crack it, re-heat it and chuck it in at 2050. There are a few micro seeds the next day but I don't care.

I switched to nuggets because I was told I could use all the gaffer colors and most of the Reichenbach.

I can remember one year I lost a months production because Kugler changed the COE on it's gold red. Boy, that pissed me off and the color company just told me to test all my colors.

Batch is dusty and eats your crucible.

Nuggets just seem to be a lot less trouble and you get a full range of colors you can trust.

[Scott Novota]

Where is everyone getting the nuggets? OCR?


Scott.
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[Scott Dunahee]

Yup. They've got distribution points around the US. Mine come from St. Louis.

BSD

[Steve Stadelman]

Olympic is probably your best source, Spectrum really wants to sell by the truckload.

[Dave Bross]

There's someone in Atlanta with a warehouse full.

Tom Fuhrman has the info but I think he's in England right now.

Anyone else know?

[Doug Sheridan]

After 3 years of use, we now charge right out of the bag, fines and all, but we preheat to 950, and never change the furnace temp that always remains at 2100. A few seed bubs in the morning and then goes clear. Typical charge is 100 lbs every other day.

[Scott Young]

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question, but how do you pre-heat to 950 right out of the bag? Do you dump it in an annealer, bring up to temp, then shovel into the furnace? All at once?

Thanks

[Lawrence Ruskin]

I use a couple of stainless tubes with the ends capped.

One is 6'' across the other is 8.

They are the length of my annealer.

A large handle is welded near the capped end so it can be lifted out of the annealer with the hot gloves on.

I made a kind of funnel so I can wash off the dust as you scoop it into the tube.

I use a two step process, I heat up the cullet and quench it in the tube. Then I re-heat it and shake the charge into my electro melt. If you don't quench it the charge will ''pop'' when it hits the hot glass.

[Doug Sheridan]

I like the tube idea, but I've never had any pop if they are given a couple of hours at 950. I never wash, sift, or quench and have had no problems.

[David Paterson]

I preheat the Nuggets to about 1100F in a stainless steel bowl. They are then dumped into a scoop with a long handle to charge. At this temperature, I can charge after about half an hour of preheating, without them popping apart, although they occassionally snap and crackle.

:)

[Lawrence Ruskin]

I quench the charge because I use 2 bayonet style SiC elements. If a piece settles between the groves in the element it could short out and break the element.

It only happened once in 15 years but that was enough.

This is why this board is so valuable. We can learn from each others abject misery....

[Charles Friedman]

Lawrence, What do you mean by "quenching the charge"??

[Lawrence Ruskin]

I put the washed charge in the stainless hopper, heat it up to 490C ( Sorry don't work in F.) take it out of the annealer, then pour cold water into the tube. This fractures the spectrum ''pillows''.

This way when I heat them up again and dump the charge into the melt the pillows don't ''pop''.

I guess the reason is that the outside of the pillow can't push against a solid inside as there isn't a solid inside; it's fractured.

I know this sounds a bit labor intensive but I hate replacing elements

[Jane Greer]

I have a stupid newbie question. When loading the glass from the annealer to the furnace, can you use a shovel? I don't have any way to make a tube the way it was described? Sorry for the stupid questions,

Jane

[Doug Sheridan]

sure, but it's best if it has a metal handle. My shovel has 3" sides to hold more nuggets.

[Laura Doerger-Roberts]

I like the nuggets and find them to be much longer than C4. I've never had any compatibility problems with gaffer.

I don't really notice the stiffness. What I DO notice is that its a lot harder to take a thin strip gather with them. With SP, I could always get a really nice, thin surface strip for pickups. The nuggets, not so much. This may be a temp issue, but its what I've noticed the most.