No, that is not the incandescent glow of 2050oF glass and an unapproved method of gathering molten glass. If it were we'd be seeing quite a different picture of the poor gaffer about to burst into flames. Instead it is the incandescent glow of... well, a 100 watt incandescent light bulb.
Yes the melter is *still* out of service.
Here is the guilty party:
so when a prior element popped it left a piece of itself behind. The intense heat of the melter actually melted the nichrome into the refractory where it formed a material so hard they could make weapons out of it. Part of this stray nichrome-ceramic compound would bubble out of the shelf and short out the replacement element, starting the process all over again.
Our goal of the day was to remove the affected portion of the element shelf and replace it with a new one.
Once the shelf dries we'll put in the replacement element:
Here's the last candy dish I made a month ago, the last piece to come out before the melter melted.
It has the size I'm looking for but I still need work on the foot. In a closeup the bubble that became the foot got misshapen and off-center. It doesn't matter as poor cross ventilation got the poor thing caught in a cold draft right near the end, and the bottom is all cracked.
What was interesting on this piece is I went almost all tool-less on the final shaping, getting the open end nice and hot so it flowed out all on its own without ever having to hit it with the jacks. Pity about the foot and the crack as it made such a nice dish....
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