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15 Hours And Not At Cone 6


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I am on the 15th hour of a cone six glaze firing, Yes, hour 15 and I am getting nervous. I usually fire on a slow cycle with my cress Firemate but it usually takes about 11or 12 hours . The kiln sitter shut off an hour ago but the witness cones that I could view had not started to bend so I continued to fire. The cones are just starting to bend but I am concerned about what is happening on the shelves I cannot see. The kiln is smaller and usually fires even .I think I must be ready for new elements. I have a lot of glaze tests in this load and hate to waste all the time I have put in this far.

Any advice ? Should stop the firing even if the visable witness cones are not fully bent?

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An hour between the sitter is quite a long time, which means the kiln is probably stalled out and not climbing much, if at all. If you normally trust the visual cones, then I would say go with them. Are the sitter and visual cones normally in sync with each other? It could be your elements are worn out, or it could be that one has fried or has a bad connection.

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Yes , they usually are spot on for bisque but just a little off for cone six, witness cone pointing to four instead of six o'clock. I haven't done a glaze firing in awhile and I havent had to replace the elements yet. I guess it is time , I be owned it a long time. I think I am going to shut it down in about 15 minutes and hope for cone 5.

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If as mentioned you trust your witness cones and you wait for the cone 6 to bend completely I think you will have a good firing with the final heat work evening out your glazes. If you do abort at cone 5 I think your glaze test will be really skewed though and would re-do. On most glazes we get completely different outcomes from cone 5 and cone 6.

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If it has stalled ( you said "cones" so I am assuming 5,6,7 ) and 6 is starting to bend after an hour then it may have stalled around cone 4 and another half hour max should get you full cone 6 with heat work... sounds like you are going to be OK though.

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So after 16 .5 hours and no change in witness cones I shut the kiln down. All shelves fired to a perfect cone 5.  The tests needed to be cone 6. I am going to check for a broken element , but  I believe I need to replace the elements. I  won't have time to get them and change them out before my class. Would it be foolish to try to fire another batch of tiles at a faster rate ?  I was thinking that if I fired faster I might get the extra heat  to get to cone 6. Would I be wasting my time to try again? 

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So after 16 .5 hours and no change in witness cones I shut the kiln down. All shelves fired to a perfect cone 5.  The tests needed to be cone 6. I am going to check for a broken element , but  I believe I need to replace the elements. I  won't have time to get them and change them out before my class. Would it be foolish to try to fire another batch of tiles at a faster rate ?  I was thinking that if I fired faster I might get the extra heat  to get to cone 6. Would I be wasting my time to try again? 

You will be wasting your time, fix the kiln first.

David

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