missholly

its reclaimed.

the molds are flipped and drained, and almost immediately, cracks all the way through form. i made the slip. ive used this slip before with no problems. ive tried adding water, taking all the water out. i havent used the viscosity cup or hydrometer.

when my slip molds are drying, the clay cracks all the way through the ware. i tried lowering the water content and adding sodium silicate, but it didnt help. help?

well, i got the tool today and it places the rod exactly where it was. this means, it isnt going to fire incorrectly for the 9th time. can i give up now?

thanks so much for the advice, neil. i will try again!!

nielestrick, it did the same thing before i changed out the elements. my kiln isnt that big, so not filling the top and bottom to capacity frustrates me. i was hoping the new elements would change that. when i do load the middle full and not so full on the top/bottom, its still guesswork. things still come out incorrectly. rockhopper, hi fellow ohioan. where are you located? im in zanesville, an hour east of columbus. my 3 cone in the sitter was severely bent. i also replaced the sitter rod mechanism, so thats new. (im not sure what its called) and the 5 switches dont have a high/low

do brand new kilns offer even heating? im so fed up with losing work that im ready to give up. how are you supposed to get an accurate temp when the difference between testing an empty kiln and a full kiln is HUGE?

ok, so i test fired with cones 2, 3, 4 and a 3 in the sitter. 1 set on top, middle, bottom. i put a few pieces of broken pottery around so it wasnt firing empty. the only cone that bent was the 2 in the middle. its obviously a huge difference in firing a kiln full or empty. so do i have to sacrifice an entire load of work just to get an accurate test?

it is a gare 1822 with 5 switches. it didnt matter where each of the 5 elements went, this is the info the manufacturer gave me. i know its over firing because its doing exactly the same thing as when i fired in another kiln (that was overfiring) so i just dropped another $30 on 3 boxes of cones, so once i test fire and see that it is overfiring, then what? all i found on my own was that you can slide the triangle shaped kiln sitter cone to adjust for temp, but along with everything else, its a guess.

hellooo again.... i FINALLY got all of my elements replaced and now the middle of my kiln is overfiring. just enough to crack the bottoms of things. is there a way to adjust anything? something? somewhere? i tested a ^06 firing empty and the cones bent perfectly. now im firing to ^3 and things are coming out slightly warped and the bottoms are cracking. ive been packing the kiln as full as i can. i havent tested the ^3 firing with the free standing cones yet to see how off it is. any thoughts?

does anyone have any experience rewiring a 3 phase kiln to a 1 phase? i have a skutt ks-1027, 3 phase that needs to be rewired for residential use. i have a good friend who is an electrician who is going to do it for me, but he was wondering if anyone had any advice?

mark, that is exactly what i was looking for. thank you! i had seen it once in a video and just didnt know what to call it. and thanks for the other ideas, guys. is there any kind of database that shows a suggested consistency on different glazes such as brushing/spraying/dipping?

gotcha! thanks!

i desperately need some help with my kickstarter campaign to fund a new kiln as mine is on its way out. is there anywhere in these forums i can post a link to it?

or does anyone use a scale to measure consistency between test batches and full batches of glaze?