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I have a question about fuming silver. I have heard that a dedicated kiln shelf should be used for it as there can be residual silver left on the shelf. Can the fumes also cause silver to be on the kiln brick and cause problems for later firings? If you have any experience with this I would appreciate hearing about it. Thanks!

Michele-MD wrote:I have a question about fuming silver. I have heard that a dedicated kiln shelf should be used for it as there can be residual silver left on the shelf. Can the fumes also cause silver to be on the kiln brick and cause problems for later firings? If you have any experience with this I would appreciate hearing about it. Thanks!

The problem is related to when the silver residue is on the kiln shelf and comes into contact with a glass that reacts with silver on a subsequent firing. Any silver residue in the actual bricks isn't generally a problem because it doesn't come into direct contact with glass.

i wonder if the silver will get back into the kiln atmosphere if a firing after the fuming is hotter? i know that if i use my kiln to burn off labels that i have to fire it empty a few hundred deg higher to clean it or i will have horrible devit on the next firing. by horrible i mean crystalline with ridges. rosanna

Brad it is true it isn't generally a problem. It will only be a problem in direct relationship to the value and timeline of the piece being created.
I once had silver stain show up from nowhere months after its use. It isn't just the kiln, it is the whole studio that must be kept clean.
When I was taught to use silver it was to be fired silver face down on a shallow tray filled with whiting which was dumped carefullyin the garbage after a single use.
The whiting was always stain colored indicting the amount of silver that otherwise would have been traveling through the kiln and trying to come back as ghosts on future projects.

what type of tray?
Cristi