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Middle Of Kiln Is Overfiring


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I am trying to sort out the problem of my uneven firing. I have an old fashioned caternary arch 6 burner gas kiln and I use cones at three levels.

I had intended to go to cone 6. The middle had cones 4,5,& 6 down, the top and bottom only cone 4 down. Is it the bag walls? maybe space the bricks a bit further apart? Or does the kiln floor need wider spaces? I am pretty sure the air flow was not obstructed by the kiln shelves.  I thought I had arranged  all the bricks nicely with lots of air flow. Help???

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I am trying to sort out the problem of my uneven firing. I have an old fashioned caternary arch 6 burner gas kiln and I use cones at three levels.

I had intended to go to cone 6. The middle had cones 4,5,& 6 down, the top and bottom only cone 4 down. Is it the bag walls? maybe space the bricks a bit further apart? Or does the kiln floor need wider spaces? I am pretty sure the air flow was not obstructed by the kiln shelves.  I thought I had arranged  all the bricks nicely with lots of air flow. Help???

 

This seems really odd to me. Any chance the middle cones were nearer the edge of the shelf and got blasted by the burners?

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After reading that perhaps my bag walls were to short, I took a look & sure enough they stopped at the middle of the middle for height. I added height today and will test things out at the next firing. Lost a bit of space as I had to also push the walls in a bit because of the arch but that's ok if it fires better.

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Many good answers. I once had this happen to me. Back when I got my first big kiln. I call tech support and they helped. I did what, perkolator, suggested and it solved my problem. I hope you get this working for you. No potter should have to wait in frustration while there's so much fun to making stuff. Good luck.

 
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  • 2 weeks later...

What about peepholes? I don't know anything about gare kilns, so I'm just guessing... can you unplug a hole in the middle to keep it from getting too hot?

 

Also, are you using the 'junior' cones in the sitter and the large or self-standing cones on the shelves? Cones made for sitters are made to bend at a different (higher) temp than the bigger ones. Same with the bars.

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The kiln sitter was designed as a safety device and never meant to be the primary method to shut off the kiln.  That is why kilns have peep holes so you are suppose to set cones so you can see them and manually shut off the kiln when the cones are where you want them. Unfortunately it is not easy to see the cones but a high power halogen flashlight will help.

David 

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