Bill Kielb

Hulk covered many so digesting those for sure will be educational. My worry would be: "aiming for a creamy consistency” which can work for experienced potters but is not necessarily an accurate way to determine the best mix for a glaze. This may eventually be just fine for what you are doing and how you do it but usually takes experience and testing. Viscosity is measurable though with very specific tools, not necessarily fingers or by sight. Many potters begin by establishing a best specific gravity for their glazes. Specific gravity is measurable by weight and therefore repeatable, from there they go on to modify as @Hulk pointed out with gelling and thixotropic modifications for that perfect dipping glaze. Testing to see what is best for each glaze along the way is often part of the process. Spraying is also an option I don’t believe has been mentioned. All techniques take time and experimentation. The more you glaze and the more you are attune to the fired rendition, the easier it becomes. It is an acquired skill though that can eventually lead to simply mixing to what appears a creamy consistency to you because you know that glaze performs well with a 3,4,5 second dip …… my preference, 3 second. A solid 1 2 3! That works for me, my glazes, my clay, my bisque temp, it may not work for others. Oh, did I mention dip duration is a consideration? It often takes a bit of time but in the end having tested, glazing becomes fairly intuitive individually. So learning as much of the how as practical provides clarity on what works for your stuff. edit to add: " I follow the recommended firing schedules for my glazes, ensuring the kiln reaches the proper temperature and hold it for the necessary duration.” There are some basics to firing, but clay and glazes are fired to cone, not necessarily a temperature. They are flux aided reactions so temperature plus time or rate of rise is the only way to know. Holds are not standard and often are added for a very specific purpose for an individual clay / glaze product. Maybe think of it Sort of like baking 450 degrees for 30 minutes. One would never expect that once 450 was reached the item was fully baked. For baking, time has a key role to successful completion. Time in ceramics is key but comes most often in the form of how many degrees per hour rise for how long as the process takes a long time to get there. It’s not possible to preheat your kiln to 2000 plus degrees and put your wares in for some amount of time. Following the instructions on the Orton cone chart and using cones can be a good start towards consistent success.

Mason stains would be a more what you see is what you get approach. Testing for sure to ensue it fires to your taste.

Hopefully this makes sense Most often you will want to fire the clay to maturity which generally means most dense, strongest and least absorbent for that claybody. So “Up to” is probably not the best way to think of it as it often implies firing lower than maturity make little difference when in fact it will not be as sturdy / durable and likely will be too absorbent. Most potters for functional wares try and fire to clay body maturity for the strongest best product. Most potters try and match their glaze to the mature clay body. The potential exception I can see cited here would be to fire the claybody to maturity, then use a lowfire glaze to say cone 04’ish. Industry often does this to save energy and improve the odds against glazing a piece that fails in midfire / highfire. So best to fire the clay to maturity and pick a matching glaze that matures with it. Interestingly, for the most part low fire clay will not be water resistant and will weep without the help of low fire glaze to seal it. Functional wares and low fire clay - not so much for many potters. Incidentally part of the process of establishing successful wares requires testing of the clay and glaze combinations for similar expansion and contraction else defects such as crazing can occur. Matching the cone of both is a good start but not all same cone clay and glaze match expansion wise. Test tiles are quite common, one cannot predict a good match without an actual test of the combination.

Interesting question by your electrician. For large loads typically If you hardwire it it must have a safety disconnect within reasonable distance. If you install a receptacle then that in essence becomes your safety disconnect. Generally no greater than 6 ft from the kiln. As to sizing,(North America) your kiln requires a breaker sized 125% of rated load but no greater than 150%. Tell your electrician it is considered a continuous load by code and size the breaker (and wire). accordingly. Incidentally better to size the wire for 1% or less voltage drop rather than rule of thumb 3%. You want the heat in your kiln, not your house wiring. If he is still wondering, you can point out residential breakers are designed to be loaded 80% maximum. So a 60 amp breaker should never be continuously loaded with more than 48 amps. The document above is fine, but cone art has docs, diagrams and breaker sizing available on their website. You can download your model kiln there so you can be sure everything is sized per the manufacture and that can be a go to manual for your kiln. Website https://coneartkilnsshop.com/index.php/pottery-kilns/ If you hardwire then use a service disconnect near the kiln. It does not have to be a fused disconnect. You will still need a breaker in your panel. Hope that all helps. Support tab contents

Couple ideas I have not seen here, convert your design to drilled holes so no longer a clean detached slot but requires threading yarn through one of the holes. Leave a couple small clay bridges in place, once finish fired - cut clay bridges with a diamond blade, buff super smooth with diamond blade and finish decorate small spots with acrylic paint or overglaze the design with lowfire glaze on midfire stuff to final decoration. Definitely make a bit thicker, a full 1/4” seems appropriate.

It is super important to draft just right amount for complete combustion else lots of heat goes up the chimney. A Damper is essential and understanding how to set the damper to get maximum efficiency from your kiln with just the right draft for what is burning in it is part of operating the kiln. As the temperature rises in the kiln there will be more draft because of the temperature rise often requiring adjustment of the damper to again minimize losses. Kilns heat mainly by radiation, not convection. You are not able to generate enough hot air to supply the necessary energy to fire the kiln to temperature using just convection. There ain’t enough heat and mass in the air traveling through the kiln to achieve high temperatures. So minimal draft to keep the fire burning as efficient as possible (making lots of hot coals):and reducing radiation losses (and some convective) right up the chimney as much as practical without smothering the combustion. How high the chimney and what size flue is a design requirement based on kiln size and in your case bed of coals developed to offset shell losses. Too big, too small, too high not really Goldilocks. Just right will be the one that best matches your kiln operating characteristics. Best way to conclude - testing and operation. Do you run out of damper (wide open - meaning more size / more height or or can you leave it fairly closed through the firing, meaning smaller opening maybe less height. About Wet wood - simply cost energy to convert to steam and reduces the heating. Don’t fire wet wood if you can avoid it.

Time to call speedball, both controls operate the wheel the very same way so there is a good chance you have a now defective motor speed controller. When the pedal is plugged in the unit is supposed to disconnect one for the other. Hard to mess this up other than it not being plugged in and fully seated. My recollection 1/4” stereo trs (guitar) cable. I’ve used this wheel for probably 10 years as a traveling wheel, no issues ever but currently in storage. Your manual:- web search: speedball artistsa manual https://www.speedballart.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Artista-Final-Updated-November-2017.pdf

208 V system voltage would indicate 3 phase. 208v leg to led and usually 120v leg to neutral. A Buck transformer usually is referred to as buck when the voltage is reduced and boost when voltage is increased. In essence an auto transformer hooked up to boost or buck the present voltage. As @PeterH mentioned, just changing the elements in this kiln to 208v (single phase) results in prox. 9000 w machine. Much less capability. I think easier to change to 3 phase 208 v wiring and 3 phase 208 v elements resulting in a prox 11000w machine. So better clarification on what is available currently and likely rewire the kiln for three phase 208 v wiring with three phase 208v elements. An autotransformer that boosts the current 208 v leg to leg to 240v single phase would be pricey. closest I find is 600.00 range and likely too small for 11500 w. Change you kiln to three phase wiring and 3 phase 208 elements much easier and in line with skutts design.

+ 1 for compression however you get it. I have had real good results just removing from the wheel and setting on the cheapest paper towel. For one, way more surface area for the pot to dry while the towel constantly wicks water from underneath to dry the bottom from the inside and underneath surface fairly evenly. Turning the pot over traps air for a good deal of the pot, including the inside of the bottom. If drying too fast, cover with a bucket or plastic. At least the pot does not stick to anything while drying so it stays round and drys fairly evenly. Might be worth a try. Once I tried it, I never contemplated any other way. Too cheap and way too easy.

@iffetorbay Just my opinion, but the L&L connectors are simple and very effective. Just need to make sure your adaptation ensures the element tales can’t short to the kiln shell.

Yep, clay is the suspender so usually at least 10% or more clay to reasonably suspend in a recipe. Neph Sy has minimal silica and alumina comparatively so what better way to lower melting requirements before boron was a thing. Many always try and have 10-20% clay in their designs to suspend everything else. Glaze Calc helps make this a bit easier these days. Boron, a game changer to use other materials.

Cement board is not rated for temperature nor as an insulator. Incidentally it does not carry a formal fire rating as well as is found in fire rated wallboard. Fire rated wallboard depends on the dehydration of gypsum for its rating. High temperature electrically rated board these days is generally Mica Glass or Macor or machinable mica glass ceramics. Fairly expensive to buy and probably rated well beyond what was originally there. Careful, early high temp sheets may contain asbestos.

Compression in my experience, but these are too thick for me to compress (especially off the hump), and really hard to dry evenly as well. So I think I would throw these nearly flat and throw a matching foot ring right after throwing the mug to reduce failure rates.

In my experience - compression is a huge contributor. Off the hump a bit of a challenge for sure. Variations in thickness often make the issue worse as drying and shrinkage rate differences often have the earmark to not fracture all of the way through the material. For hollow knobs (closed forms) I usually take the backside of a needle tool inserted into the hollow to compress the closure a bit when still green. It’s the easiest way to finally get some compression in that joint and seems to limit failures to nearly zero. If I don’t, probably 1:10 develop some tiny crack at that joint. So finding a way to compress can be adaptive to a form. For drying without plaster I found setting the object on the cheapest of paper towels keeps it from sticking and grabbing as well as dries the bottom very evenly without flipping. No more out of round pieces from dragging, no flipping so the most surface area possible can remain exposed and everything drys very evenly so less cracks from thickness especially hump thrown (pop up) lids. The paper towel wicks the water out from under and probably works as good or better than plaster for nearly no effort and minimal cost. I throw as much as possible off the wheel head so less use of batts as well. We call it set it and forget it.

This may help - no guarantees. https://youtu.be/BAwo5cKhCuM?feature=shared BTW New Hampshire, Rhode Island or across the pond?