liambesaw

I wasn't successful getting the gold to reduce with just pine resin, if you buy Greg Daly's book "lustre", he details making it from elemental sulfur and gold chloride. This works well.  Commercial lustres using pine resin thinned with toluene use a different gold salt, I'm guessing that's the reason they work.  I think the compound is a chlorohexanoic salt of gold. 
You'll also need a bit of bismuth in there to act as a flux bridging the gold and glaze.  
I had some luck making a silver lustre by making silver soap.  Silver decanoate.  But it was difficult to dissolve in almost everything so it was a pain to apply.  Was conductive though and I made a few touch lamps using it.  Also had success doing a similar thing with copper.

I wasn't successful getting the gold to reduce with just pine resin, if you buy Greg Daly's book "lustre", he details making it from elemental sulfur and gold chloride. This works well.  Commercial lustres using pine resin thinned with toluene use a different gold salt, I'm guessing that's the reason they work.  I think the compound is a chlorohexanoic salt of gold. 
You'll also need a bit of bismuth in there to act as a flux bridging the gold and glaze.  
I had some luck making a silver lustre by making silver soap.  Silver decanoate.  But it was difficult to dissolve in almost everything so it was a pain to apply.  Was conductive though and I made a few touch lamps using it.  Also had success doing a similar thing with copper.

I wasn't successful getting the gold to reduce with just pine resin, if you buy Greg Daly's book "lustre", he details making it from elemental sulfur and gold chloride. This works well.  Commercial lustres using pine resin thinned with toluene use a different gold salt, I'm guessing that's the reason they work.  I think the compound is a chlorohexanoic salt of gold. 
You'll also need a bit of bismuth in there to act as a flux bridging the gold and glaze.  
I had some luck making a silver lustre by making silver soap.  Silver decanoate.  But it was difficult to dissolve in almost everything so it was a pain to apply.  Was conductive though and I made a few touch lamps using it.  Also had success doing a similar thing with copper.

I wasn't successful getting the gold to reduce with just pine resin, if you buy Greg Daly's book "lustre", he details making it from elemental sulfur and gold chloride. This works well.  Commercial lustres using pine resin thinned with toluene use a different gold salt, I'm guessing that's the reason they work.  I think the compound is a chlorohexanoic salt of gold. 
You'll also need a bit of bismuth in there to act as a flux bridging the gold and glaze.  
I had some luck making a silver lustre by making silver soap.  Silver decanoate.  But it was difficult to dissolve in almost everything so it was a pain to apply.  Was conductive though and I made a few touch lamps using it.  Also had success doing a similar thing with copper.

I wasn't successful getting the gold to reduce with just pine resin, if you buy Greg Daly's book "lustre", he details making it from elemental sulfur and gold chloride. This works well.  Commercial lustres using pine resin thinned with toluene use a different gold salt, I'm guessing that's the reason they work.  I think the compound is a chlorohexanoic salt of gold. 
You'll also need a bit of bismuth in there to act as a flux bridging the gold and glaze.  
I had some luck making a silver lustre by making silver soap.  Silver decanoate.  But it was difficult to dissolve in almost everything so it was a pain to apply.  Was conductive though and I made a few touch lamps using it.  Also had success doing a similar thing with copper.

I really enjoy goldmark galleries features on artists, here's a link to their 14 short films on potters: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFvUht41DkhImM4CVUwsE7r4WVJqN6V8q
Here's some of my favorite channels as well
Hsinchuen lin: https://www.youtube.com/user/hsinchuen
Simon leach (yes THAT leach): https://www.youtube.com/user/sleachpots
Ingleton pottery: https://www.youtube.com/user/youdanxxx
Matthew Kelly pottery: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC19npAMIfG47wgdrFX--4zw
 
And of course the obligatory shameless self promotion of my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRyK3g9rImtTJfaI5iGAP4w
I'm in no way the same league as the ones above me, they are all seasoned professional teachers and you'll learn a lot watching them.

Sounds like a fault with the clay, not with your methods.
You may be drying it out too much with your wedging.  If it's pugged clay from the manufacturer try just using it straight from the bag and see if that helps.  
Some clays are just short.

Use grolleg or nz if you are trying to preserve some sort of translucency, otherwise EPK is great and cheap

I also do not water my pots down.  I don't do anything to them before glazing except blow them off with an air hose to knock off any dust

All the knob for "overglaze, ceramic, hi fire" does is set an intermittent timer.  A super expensive timer to boot.  I have helped two people get these working and both had a bad timer.  Seems like people use the kiln until the timer fails, and then sell it on Craigslist and pretend it works.
Anyway, think of that knob as firing rate, and from what I remember, duncan wants you to use the ceramic setting for bisque and stoneware glaze firings and the hifire one for porcelain glaze firings.
The end temperature is determined by the kilnsitter.  I wonder if what he meant is to use the same setting for bisque and glaze, not the same cone. 

The overglaze-ceramic-hi-fire knob is an adjustable interval timer.  At overglaze it slowly ramps to full power, at ceramic it has a medium ramp and hi-fire is a steep ramp.  
And it's one of those parts where if it goes out, its gonna cost you about 400 bucks.  Unfortunately it's not an off-the-shelf part, it's a mechanical timer made for this kiln and available from duncan(paragon?)

Paint scraper?  

I really enjoy goldmark galleries features on artists, here's a link to their 14 short films on potters: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFvUht41DkhImM4CVUwsE7r4WVJqN6V8q
Here's some of my favorite channels as well
Hsinchuen lin: https://www.youtube.com/user/hsinchuen
Simon leach (yes THAT leach): https://www.youtube.com/user/sleachpots
Ingleton pottery: https://www.youtube.com/user/youdanxxx
Matthew Kelly pottery: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC19npAMIfG47wgdrFX--4zw
 
And of course the obligatory shameless self promotion of my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRyK3g9rImtTJfaI5iGAP4w
I'm in no way the same league as the ones above me, they are all seasoned professional teachers and you'll learn a lot watching them.

Even if you live in a frost free area, you still can't buy wax products in the winter.  The dealers simply won't ship then.  Make sure you have a supply by fall.

Freezing slip will cause water to leave parts of the slip, leaving drier clumps when thawed, but a little bit of time in a blender or magic bullet or whatever will set it straight.
If it's casting slip, the water will separate and the deflocculant and other salts present (I'm looking at you neph sy) will crystallize.  Would be a bit more of a task to thaw out casting slip.
What will work fine at keeping mold out though, is a tiny pinch of copper carbonate.

Depends on my mood.  Pottery... It's a helluva drug 

I spent the weekend glazing the rest of my bisqueware I had saved up, finishing bottoms and taking pictures.  Going to be listing it all on my online store and having a fun sale sometime in the coming weeks.  I have some stuff I know will be popular just from how many people on instagram, facebook and reddit have reached out to try to snipe things early.  
I participated in my local clay art associations pot swap this year and will be sending out this plate to the person whose name I drew!
 

I've never had mold issues with clay, it's more bacteria than mold.  Anaerobic bacteria sets up shop in my throwing water and reeks to high heaven.
You'll have to just give it a try and find out how sensitive you are to whatever mold or bacteria is in your studio.  You can't get around it by spraying everything with h2o2, it's just not feasible.

Haven't heard or read "grep" since ...retirement!
Awk sed nice batch head finger ! (aka bang)

I've never had mold issues with clay, it's more bacteria than mold.  Anaerobic bacteria sets up shop in my throwing water and reeks to high heaven.
You'll have to just give it a try and find out how sensitive you are to whatever mold or bacteria is in your studio.  You can't get around it by spraying everything with h2o2, it's just not feasible.

That’s great Liam. Now if those functions are actually available, I’d  just like to figure out where one configures the GPIO values for, for example, “door.” I got a hunch from yor text and did s google search for "picoreflow door switch wiring" and now I understand this project looks like a spinoff of one called picoreflow - and I found some docs on it here: https://projects-raspberry.com/picoreflow/ 

At my home studio the only people who pilfer pots are neighbors and family, which is 100% OK with me and I've told them all so.  In high school/college the only pots that disappeared after firing were incognito bongs and pipes and I know the teachers accidentally lost them on purpose
 
Right now on my bench I've got several more lamp projects and coffee pourovers.  This lamp has 7 soviet era neon bulbs (nixie lamps) to provide a warm communist orange glow.
 

What specifically?  It's all dynamic so it's not as simple as looking at the html.  The values are populated by the program.  The html is in /public and the javascript is in /public/assets/js and the python code is scattered about.  You can search for the symbols you want in the files to see where they're stored.

What specifically?  It's all dynamic so it's not as simple as looking at the html.  The values are populated by the program.  The html is in /public and the javascript is in /public/assets/js and the python code is scattered about.  You can search for the symbols you want in the files to see where they're stored.

The majority of people who get into ceramics now are going to work in cone 6 if they plan to have a home studio. And for a large percentage of commercial studios it can be just as difficult to install a gas kiln because of zoning restrictions and cost, which was the case for my studio. In 2008 I moved my studio after 4 years at its original location, where I had a gas kiln, and it proved impossible to install a gas kiln at another location in my town because of landlords who didn't want it in their buildings and because of the cost. Those costs included making changes to the studio to increase fire ratings of shared walls, as well as the cost of upgrading gas lines and moving and re-installing the ventilation system. I already had the kiln and it was still going to cost me $35K+ to do all the other stuff. So instead I bought two electric kilns for about $6000, and I have never regretted it.
From the standpoints of running a community studio and producing my own line of work, firing electric has made my studio life much easier and freed up a lot of my time because I don't have to babysit the kiln. I can be at home with my family, or out on repair jobs, or at an art fair while the kilns are firing. I can have the kilns on while my students are in the studio, because they're so much quieter than most gas kilns. I can fire overnight while I sleep, and my students can load and run the kilns if I get too busy with repair work. Other benefits of electric kilns for me are faster turnaround times and more size options. Because they cool faster, I can get pieces fired and moved through the studio faster than I could with my gas kiln. My little test kiln allows me to fire just a couple of mugs at a time so I can get small orders out the door faster, and I do a lot more glaze testing than I did with my gas kiln.
It has been mentioned that people feel more connected to the firing when they fire with gas, but I have found the opposite to be true. With electric kilns I'm more connected to what's happening during a firing because I program exactly what's happening, with a precision that wasn't there with gas. I have far more control over what's happening every minute, and I put much more thought into my firing schedules than I ever did when I fired with gas. I also have to be more aware of how I load the electric kilns than I did with gas, as I don't have the benefit of moving air and pressure in an electric kiln. Even though I'm not turning up dials and adjusting dampers and doing the physical work during a firing, mentally I'm much more in tune with the firing than before.
After 29 years of making pots and working in all temperatures, I'm mostly just tired of the attitudes that one type of firing/cone is better than another. That attitude was instilled in me during my college years, and it cost me a lot of time and money and creative progress when I got out of school because I was so hung up on the idea that I needed to make cone 10 reduction pots in order to make good pots. The reality was that my situation was really better suited for cone 6 electric work, and instead of jumping into that I spent a lot of time more focused on trying to get a gas kiln set up when I didn't really need one. For most people, one certain type of kiln/firing is going to be the best option for their studio. That may be electric because of zoning rules, or it may be gas because of their production needs. Most people won't have much of a choice, but no one should ever be made to feel like they're making a sacrifice because of it. Everyone should feel confident that they can make great work no matter how they fire.