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Kiln Didn't Reach Temperature


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Hi,

 

I am looking for some advise if possible.  I fired my kiln last night but the kiln didn't reach full temperature.  I looked at the cone I have in my cone stand and it is not melted.  The cone in the sitter either melted or fell off and the kiln shut off.

 

Can I re-fire?  As I have not unloaded it, can I just turn it on?

 

Thanks

 

Mal

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I would wait until the kiln is cool enough to unload then have a look at what happened to the cone in the sitter. Sounds like maybe your sitter needs adjusting or  you could have set the backup timer shut-off for too short a time.

 

If the cone in the sitter looks over melted then I would adjust it, in the following link skip the first page about replacing the tube and follow the parts for adjustment starting on page 2. http://www.archiebrayclay.com/content/10.15-Tube-Assembly-Replacement-Type-K.pdf

 

Also, was the sitter cone placed properly?

 

Yes, you can re-fire but I would figure out what went wrong first and watch the cones at the end of the firing. 

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I had this happen on a glaze firing,,,, the kiln sitter cone broke.  I called Orton and they said to check each cone by holding with fingers and pull... not twist.  The cone should not break.  I had about 15 in a 50 piece box break. Not sure why... defect in cones or rough handling in shipping??? But with the test pull I feel more confident it won't happen again.  I had some interesting glaze melts which didn't quite correct in the refiring and never to be replicated.

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I am kind of embarrassed, I took Min's advise and took a critical look at the problem before I put the work back in and simply re-fired.  The issue was that I wasn't paying attention and put a 06 cone in the sitter (which tripped the sitter at a temperature that was too low for the glaze to mature) and a large cone 6 in my peep-hole stand.

 

Needless to say that I have matching cone 6 cones now and am re-firing the kiln.  

 

Thanks for the support.  This is a great community.

 

Mal

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Don't beat yourself up to much I had this happen recently and I have been firing electric kilns for 40 years.  I decided to organize my cones in a small cabinet with pull out drawers, I labeled each one and filled them up.  Several months later when I was firing my test kiln it shut off way too early so I thought I had a broken cone it's happened before.  Once it cooled I could tell by the color of the cone what had happened, I glanced over at my neatly organized cone cabinet and noticed that C6 was directly below C06.  I try not to be in such a hurry now.     Denice

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I use to leave them in my boxes but the local supplier  started selling them in ziplock bags in smaller amounts which was great for trying out a different cone of clay and glaze that you don't normally work with.  Bad for organization I ended up with a lot more broken cones in the baggies.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 years later...

Have an old Amaco octagonal kiln that is at least from the 1950s. 

I recently bought a new box of mini cones for the kiln sitter and immediately I noticed that the cones were not melting and hence, the kiln did not

turn off.  The timer is broken and you cannot see a visual cone.

SO... after reading some of these messages, I am thinking the box of 05s are not 05s at all.

Thoughts? I fire for 8 hours after an overnight low on the bottom.

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On 3/6/2020 at 6:53 PM, Brigette said:

Have an old Amaco octagonal kiln that is at least from the 1950s. 

I recently bought a new box of mini cones for the kiln sitter and immediately I noticed that the cones were not melting and hence, the kiln did not

turn off.  The timer is broken and you cannot see a visual cone.

SO... after reading some of these messages, I am thinking the box of 05s are not 05s at all.

Thoughts? I fire for 8 hours after an overnight low on the bottom.

My guess, it’s an old kiln that likely is not making it to cone 05. No harm in trying another sourced 05 cone but sounds like a kiln checkup may be in order. Pretty rare for cones to be miss-marked but possible I guess. One big difference in low-fire (05 -3) cones is they are made with iron so they are brown / red colored. Cone 5 cones are iron free so I think they are generally colored green

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  • 9 months later...
On 8/21/2015 at 3:23 PM, Maj0rMalfunct10n said:

I am kind of embarrassed, I took Min's advise and took a critical look at the problem before I put the work back in and simply re-fired.  The issue was that I wasn't paying attention and put a 06 cone in the sitter (which tripped the sitter at a temperature that was too low for the glaze to mature) and a large cone 6 in my peep-hole stand.

 

Needless to say that I have matching cone 6 cones now and am re-firing the kiln.  

 

Thanks for the support.  This is a great community.

 

Mal

Thanks for sharing this Mal! I just did the exact same error... I'll try again!

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