Stop Trying to Force Standard Heaters Into Tight Spaces
Let’s be honest: standard infrared lamps are great until you actually try to fit them into a non-standard bending furnace. If your footprint is cramped, you can’t just shove a stock lamp into a tight corner and hope for the best. It doesn’t work. That’s why we do things differently. We build custom-length and custom-shape infrared heaters specifically for wine glass annealing.
Getting the heat exactly where it belongs
Wine glasses are tricky. All those complex curves mean you need heat hitting the glass exactly where it bends. If you miss the mark, you get thermal shock or uneven stress points, and that’s how you end up with broken glass. We build your lamps to your exact specs. No guesswork. No “close enough.” Because the fit is precise, you can tuck the heating elements much closer to the workpiece. You don’t have to worry about things bumping into each other or—even worse—causing an electrical short.
A word on power density
Here is the thing about shortening a lamp: it changes the wattage per centimeter. If we keep the power high but make the lamp shorter, the heat density spikes. On the plus side, this means your annealing zone ramps up way faster. But a heads-up: make sure your wiring and power supplies can handle that extra punch. You don’t want to burn out your connectors. To make things easier, we offer a few different termination options so the lamps fit your current jigs without you having to rewire your whole shop.
The trade-off
Nothing is perfect. When we bend a quartz tube into a custom shape, it puts some internal stress on the glass. These custom shapes solve your space problems, but they’re a bit more sensitive to vibration than a straight tube. I always recommend using dampened mounts. It keeps the lamps from cracking when the machine starts cycling. When the heater actually fits the void of your furnace, those annoying cold spots just disappear. Your annealing cycle stays consistent, and you stop seeing those frustrating internal stress fractures in your finished pieces.