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What Kind Of Kiln Shelves To Use?


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Bailey has come in with an element holder in their high end kilns. These are fixed front loaders. They highlight the benefits of this ceramic element holder quite a bit in their info. They do not offer this in their top loaders. I believe there must be a copyright infringement deal with L&L, but that is only guessing.

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back to the original question.  I am sure people here will tell you I am wrong, but I would go to your clay supplier and ask them what they have that is cheap and on sale and get them at low a cost as possible.  I picked up many shelves from him that were odd balls and they are working fine.  then as you learn more spend the money on nicer shelves as they need replacing.  That is what I did and it is working out great.  sure shelves break and warp, but at 20-30  dollars a shelf no big loss.

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What is this huge red monstrosity, attached to Bailey's kilns? OK, I know, it's the relay etc box that gets hot too.

But why is it on the front of the kiln? Really awful design. Rohde moved all this stuff to the left-back side of the kiln so you can have better access to your kiln from the front. Hard wiring the controller to relay box is also really weird design decision. Never mind that...

 

Those Advancers made me drool too. :) Any idea, who imports Advancers shelves to EU?

BTW, you can get those from that damn China for less than 100 USD a pop, if you buy 30 or so shelves.

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  • 10 months later...

I looked over all the comments and didn't see any comments that were about Nitride Bonded Silicon Carbide Shelves. On the good side, they are super cheap, but what is the downside ? There has to be a downside. I am looking for lighter weight shelves, as my old 1" shelves are too heavy for me to lift into the kiln by myself.  

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They are not as good as advancers in all regards-you would be better off with the corelites I feel than nitrate bonded.My old potter friend had tham and complained about them-he has since passed away so I cannot tell you the downside I just kniow there are some.

Mark

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I had a Skutt 1027 and the day I liked that kiln the best was the day I waved goodbye to it.  Bought an L&L from Neil and I've been a happy camper since.  I certainly don't fire on the schedule of a production potter but my cordierite shelves still look great, no warping or distortion and if/when they do I can buy news one a couple of times over for the price of Advancers.  Buying a kiln is a big deal (It was a bigger deal for me than buying a car!) so take your time now so you aren't kicking yourself in the butt later.  

 

My kiln requires 200 amp service which we had anyways, so my only outside expense was paying an electrician to install a service receptacle.  And as much as I like my iPhone and tricked up apps, I would never trust one to tell me what was going on with a 2000+ degree oven chugging away on my property, anymore than I would go off and leave my kitchen oven running.  This is one of those shopping decisions you will be glad to have in your rearview mirror.

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  • 3 years later...

I have now own two L&L Kilns and the investment is worth it.  They now have a smaller front loader than the Paragons-- perfect size for my small studio.  And, I added on the Genesis Kiln controller-- it is super.  You can easily program it without having to remember a bunch of codes.

We have high alumina shelves and have been using them regularly for more than a year.  They have not warped and work great.  To fit the new kiln better I got 16x16 inch shelves and had some cut in half.  Our cuts were kind of ragged-- due to haste-- but they work just fine.

 

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