Roberta12

For better or worse, the commercial purveyors of premixed glazes have co-opted a general  glaze chemistry term as a specific glaze name. A flux is simply any of the alkaline metal or alkaline earth oxides that assist glass (alumina and silica oxides) to melt at lower temperatures. The Mayco and Amaco glazes that are named one or another variety of "Flux" (e.g., Honey Flux, Light Flux, Dark Flux) are actually just cone 5 glazes that are designed to be applied over a cone 6 glaze, causing it to melt at the lower cone 5 temperature so as to stream down over the cone 6 base glaze and interact with it as they melt together. Nobody knows what Mayco and Amaco put in their proprietary glazes, but there are some recipes developed by others that have similar effects, and published for public use. Search Glazy.org for "Flux Glaze;" there are several recipes to try.
Or you can try some layering of other glazes, such at the Strontium Crystal Magic series that Bill mentioned. These are not represented as direct substitutes for the commercial glazes named Flux, but they do make interesting runny effects.

@Hulk, that reminds me of several years ago at my Dad's home the drier wouldn't dry the clothes. It would run, but not dry them on their automatic settings. Checked the vent to outside, no air coming through. Went to the basement and yanked the drier exhaust, found a mouse nest with 3 mice drowned in it. The duct had become blocked and moisture kept going in to fill with water, the weight of the water caused a pocket that trapped the mice in the nest and drowned them. Cleared it all out, re-supported the duct work, and replaced the outside flapper that kept the duct from getting visitors and things worked well.
 
best,
Pres 

It has happened to a few electrical boards and between the contacts on the back end of electrical components in my neck of the woods.  Anything that is outside with an electrical board that is not 100% sealed will get the issue at some point.
Thursday my brother told me his HVAC stopped working.  I went to his place after work finding the 3 amp fuse blown and lots of ohm testing we decided it was something in the outdoor unit.  It took me a few minutes of reading the electrical diagram to remember how the outside unit worked again.  After a bunch more testing the only odd stuff we could find was the defrost board and on the back side had a spider that had shorted out 3 different traces leaving some burn marks and a broken trace.  $98 for a new board, $35 for a new cap as his was testing weak, and $22 for a new contactor as his was badly pitted.  Should get the parts in the mail in a few days.

I had a problem with wasps building a mud nest in my vent fan.  Cleaned it out and everything was fine!
 

I will have to look into what google has to say about us.  I did not think about this.  

This is the dark side of the internet age. I’m sure you did not ask to be reviewed on google, but now all the crazies have discovered you. Keep that “the answer is NO” energy strong!

Welcome to the forum
Welcome to the new world anything goes with people thses days
All I can say is double down on the word NO
You cannot please everyone all the time just learn the new normal is NO for ridiculous requests

I have read through this and cannot tell if you are using witness cones to confirm things are “too hot”. Cones sense temperature but also time at a temperature or heat work. The target cone temperature built into the controller is a target which can change a bit depending upon the amount of heat work calculated. Often this depends on the load as well. The controller keeps calculating the heatwork which often ends on or near the target. Witness cones are the only way to know what the kiln truly fired to. In the end, the best firing for your clay and glaze is the one your glazes behave the best in.

If you know it's firing hot, then it would be worth your time to run an empty load with cones and get it dialed in so you don't have to watch it. It may take a couple of firings, but it'll be worth it in the long run to be able to trust your controller.

@Valarie  Yes, lots of possibilities with underglaze and transfers.  As @Bill Kielbsuggested, it might be easier to bisque your underglazed pieces first then apply the transfers, but you can try it any ol way.  I have also put underglaze on leather (or even bone dry) pots and then put transfers over the underglaze.  The bone dry pots absorb the underglaze quickly and then it make it easy to apply the transfers.  Happy surface decorating!
 

Do we know if the airbrushed underglaze has already been bisque fired? To avoid doing 3 firings I put underglaze on fairly dry but not bone dry pots then leave them sit overnight then put the transfer on then bisque fired followed by glaze firing. Underglazes have enough gum in them to stay put when fully dry, transfers definitely need to be bisque fired on before glazing if brushing or dipping. Might be okay with spraying glaze on them, I haven't tried that so can't say for certain. Recently I've been silkscreening Amaco Jet Black or Spectrum underglaze on a gelli plate, those are nice and set when bisque fired but I noticed there are some commercial underglaze transfers that don't have enough flux in them that do smudge after bisque firing, some are so short of flux that you can just wipe them right off.

If the airbrushed underglaze is nubbly in texture like can happen when spraying then it might be difficult to get clean lines from the transfer. If the underglaze is smooth but unfired on the bisque I'ld leave it really harden up before trying the underglaze transfer.

It’s usually easier to apply tissue transfers to wet clay, but it can be done on bisque. You just have to use a light hand and blot when you dampen it with a sponge, or the image will smudge easily. Glazes will be best dipped carefully, or sprayed on. If you use a brushing glaze, it’ll smear the image.

I thought MOP at first too but then I noticed Emma mentioned 2 grams, which I believe is what the precious metals are sold as; weight not volume. If this is the case then putting them on lightly will not give the gold colour at all but rather a purple. (yup, I've done that with the gold)

Well my gut was right and the load was beautiful.
Here are the results
Now if only the predicted rain this weekend on our local show will go away

Well it happened
I was at near cone 10 when I looked in for the first look at my cones (cone 10/11) about 2290 on my digital pyro. This is my 35 cubic foot car kiln-I had just turned off my smaller 12 cubic foot glaze fire in updraft (i'm doing both kilns same day  gklaze fires all this year )
The cone pad had fallen over-nosed dived down sometine during fire.Never had this happen-I made the pads so its all in my court
Now in the past I have blown up cones and discoverd it at red heat and been able to slip with a small anglke iron a new set of cones  in the 4 inch diameter spy plug extremly slowing without blowing them up.
But this at near end point is way different as the time temp has already gone by. so no way to put another cone set in that will be accurate So I look to my log book and see that the end point I shoot for is a soft cone 11 which has about a 40 degree spread in past 6 glaze fires. I pick a middle zone and fire to that and by my gut feeling .
So tonight I'm eating fresh albacore I caught on Monday and beans and squash from our garden wondering about how this kiln load will look in am. I usually am not to concerned about it but this seat of the pants fire is way out of the box. Time will tell. I resisted looking in with a flashlight-I'll take my lumps in am all at one time-underfired or overfired we shall see.
If this was easy everyone would be doing it.

So there’s a lot to learn about glaze chemistry, and if you’re interested in furthering your knowledge, there are some good free resources. You are by no means required to have a big chemistry background if you’re making a few things just for fun, but knowledge helps you even if you’re just buying a few bottles of glaze and a box of clay and calling it therapy. If you want to get into selling functional work, it’s a good idea to learn a lot more though. 
You already know about this website, and there’s all kinds of fun and informative videos and articles to be found here. You have already discovered the forum
The reference we all know and love is digitalfire.com. It’s an older website, but it’s been put together by Tony Hansen, who makes all the clay and glazes for Plainsman, which is the main clay supplier in western Canada. It’s got articles and materials information galore. Here’s a link to the articles list there, but theres lots more to read. Apologies ahead of time to your family if you like going down internet rabbit holes. 
Glazy is also a great tool if you want to get into calculations, or to find glaze recipes to mix yourself, glazy.org offers a free glaze software calculator and a searchable database of glaze recipes others have posted. 
 

I am not seeing crazing on these photos.
Is it possible you applied glaze too thickly.
If the glaze moves, then so will underglaze it is fluxing with. Need a stiff clear imo

Holes in the base will aid drying for sure. It is moisture not trapped air whih will nlow a piece apart. So is base is thick , pierce it to allow i todry out.

@Lucybeaumont Congratulations for being a problem solver!!  You will become more and more confident in your ability to repair and maintain your kiln as time goes on.  And if you get stuck, and it's after hours and you can't contact Skutt, these people on the forum are amazing!  @oldlady was very correct when she commented on the average electrician not knowing much about kilns.  By contacting a potter friend and the forum, you were able to get the job done.  Happy potting!
Roberta

So glad you solved this problem!
I had it a while back, mine was also a sieving problem. In looking for the cause, I also came across this great post that talked about the importance of blending. Enjoy!
https://glazy.org/posts/173081

Thanks! I feel like some of my insulators weren't lining up properly with the holes which is why they aren't flush. I'll open it back up and see if I can get them in a bit better before I fire it. I didn't  know if my kiln was 1 phase or 3 phase, and actually have no idea what that means to be honest! But the drawings looked the same to me...so much to learn! Thank you for your help.

you will find that with several years of work into being a potter, they know many things about many different subjects.   the average electrician does not run into kilns in his/her daily business.  there is a lot more to working on a kiln than connecting wires.   if you hire one, get that name from several potters or businesses using kilns.
you will also learn to keep your eyes open to everything.   what someone does not want anymore is possibly exactly what you need in your studio.  saving money on permanent items allows you more $ to buy clay and glaze materials.

Thanks everyone, for all of these great suggestions and for all the info/wisdom! I reached out to the potter who I bought the kiln from and she said she had replaced the relays just before she sold it to me. Since I've only fired it 7 times hopefully those are still ok, unless it's just a loose wire type of thing. She also had a box of new elements she had ordered but not yet installed as she thought that would likely need to happen soon. She included that box with the sale of the kiln so I had them all ready to go.
A friend who runs a small community arts ceramics studio offered to come over and help and showed me how to replace the elements. Oldlady, I wish I had thought of replacing the brick at the same time, that is a good suggestion! Possibly I could go back and do that but because I had the elements in hand and not the brick it didn't occur to me.
My friend walked me through how to change one element. I have decided to do them all since they were all installed at the same time and were equally old so I'll be tackling the rest this week. Fingers crossed when I plug it back in and test again it all glows nicely! I was feeling pretty lost a couple days ago but am more hopeful now...and once again have learned a few things. I did not realize being a potter meant being an electrician!
Thanks again!

Your kiln has 3 rings/sections, and each ring has two elements. Each element loops twice, so 4 rows of elements. Each ring of the kiln is connected to a relay, so 3 relays. The relays are what you hear clicking when the kiln is firing. They're just switches that send power to the elements. Because your kiln has both elements dead in one ring, you likely have a dead relay. If the problem was an element, then we would probably see only one dead element, because it's very rare for two elements to fail at the same time. Unplug the kiln and open up the control box and inspect for any obvious fried wiring connections. Then open up the panel in the control box to get to the internal wiring and relays. Again, check for any obvious fried connections. If everything looks good, then the relay for that section is likely the culprit. Because all 3 relays click at the same time, if one has died to to age, then the other two are probably close to dying as well, so you should replace all 3. You can either get them from Skutt, or source them yourself on the internet for a lower price. Just search for the part number on the relay.