Enamelling furnaces

In this category, you can find assortment of Nabertherm enamelling furnaces, which, thanks to its perfect properties and technical design, belong to mostly used furnaces for enamel firing not only among professionals.

On the market, there are enamelling furnaces from several manufacturers. Based on our personal experience and user rating, we prefer the Nabertherm brand, which combines above-standard quality and long lifetime. These enamelling furnaces are characteristic for easy control, unique functional properties, possibilities of easy regulation and a wide range of various dimensions in stock for a fast dispatch.

Choosing an enamelling furnace

 Enamelling furnaces differ from one another not only by the size of the device, but also by energy  consumption, maximum reached temperature or weight. Basic enamelling furnaces have standard settings and regulation of the firing, while advanced devices have advanced settings of regulation and firing process programming.

Quality enamelling furnaces are usually made of frameless construction with an adequate coating and multilayer structure of insulation that guarantees long lifetime. Chamber of enamelling furnace should be made of lightweight fibrous insulation that allows short heating periods and logically is also equipped with covered heating elements to increase the resistance to temperature shocks when opening the furnace at high temperatures. The most common solution is covering the heating element in quartz tubes or ceramic boards, so called muffles. Thanks to this, the heating elements of the enamelling furnace are also protected against the influence of aggressive substances which can be released from the charge. Enamelling furnaces should be also equipped with a controller, a switching element (ideally a non-contacting switching relay) and a ventilation system. For more expensive solutions, the furnace can be equipped with an exhaust fan or a supply of protective atmosphere.

So-called muffle furnaces are good for smaller works, because they are, among other things, characteristic by low energy consumption and easy control. These furnaces contain a lightweight fibre insulation that allows fast reaching the operational temperature. Quality enamelling furnaces are equipped with a perfectly working regulation that ensures elimination of temperature fluctuations and affects the temperature distribution in the furnace. Higher temperature differences can result to different colour effects of final product, which is usually not desirable. Control of heating should be solved ideally by quiet semiconductor relays which are subject to minimal wear.

In the case that you are interested in an enamelling furnace for industrial production, please feel free to contact us with your inquiry. We will gladly make a price offer on such a furnace. 

Tips on working with enamel

 The products are loaded into an enamelling furnace that was pre-heated to the working temperature recommended by the manufacturer of enamel. Enamels for metals are usually fired at temperatures of 700 – 850 °C.

It is good to pre-heat an enamelling furnace to higher temperature than the firing temperature required, because upon opening the hot furnace, a heat loss occurs that needs to be considered.

The charge must be carefully inserted into an enamelling furnace in completely dry state and in such a way to prevent mixing of applied but still unfired colours. The resulting colour of enamel is given by the quality of colours, the colour combination, the thickness of applied layer, the firing period and the number of firing cycles. Thanks to repeated firing in the enamelling furnace, it is possible to obtain new effects and craft the appearance, but it may also cause unwanted appearance changes. Very important is the precise time of firing and it is derived from your experience with colours and specific enamelling furnace. Firing itself takes at a smaller product between 1 and 3 minutes.

If you want to experiment and seek for new effects and appearances, it is advisable to record firing temperatures, proceed according guidelines/tables and write down each result, including the firing period.

Prior to the application of an enamel itself, it is necessary to properly clean and degrease the surface on which the enamel will be applied.