Callie Beller Diesel

As someone who learned patience very much against their will, moaning about it the ENTIRE time: this will only get you so far. At some point someone’s going to make a nasty comment, and the good feelings of cranking stuff out will vanish very abruptly. There is a happy medium between waiting 4 days for leather hard and speed drying in your oven in a matter of hours. It leads to better pots, and all the good feelings about having learned a skill/accomplished what you set out to do on purpose, rather than accepting “happy accidents” all the time.

Hi and welcome to the forum Carol! What do you need advice in regards to?

I keep my kiln shelves (electric) outside in a tin garden shed year round for the last 5, and so far they’re fine. I wouldn’t expect a freeze thaw cycle to affect kiln shelves unless they’re getting wet.

If the powers that be need to see the repair state of the kilns, get them images, and show the side by side comparison to a new kiln. Emphasize that you will not be able to keep them propped up for a lot longer under current usage. Another question to consider is do the sub-par operations or conditions of these kilns contribute in any way to potential liability regarding the volunteers?

I went looking to see if I could find some current information on lead contamination in used pottery kilns and if it was possible to remediate. I couldn’t find a lot of information around lead in hobby pottery in general that was less than 10 years old. (If someone else has better search results than I do, please chime in!) I found one mention in a 20 year old Clayart thread that said you could fire the kiln with a bowl of neph sye in it to absorb lead fumes and you’d be fine, but there was no logic presented, or info on how much lead could be removed by this method. The only reason I mention it at all is because both Roy and Hesselbreth commented in that thread, and neither refuted the statement. But again, I have to stress it was written before 2013, when the FDA decided that no levels of lead are safe. There’s a number of sources though that state lead contamination from a kiln is indeed a possibility, although most references were to folk pottery, or ware produced in countries where lead use still exists. Lead on your pots would be fairly easy to check for, if anyone is reading this and is suddenly concerned about their Craigslist kiln. Many readily available lead tests are designed for things like dishes.

You’re not alone. It’ll teach you patience whether you want it to or not!

@Cajonat if you haven’t yet, make sure you let Plainsman in Edmonton and Ceramics Canada in Calgary know you’re selling these. They’ve both got bulletin boards for used equipment, and stuff goes quickly.

@Traciedyou might get more traction if you create a new post with details about what kind you’d like and an area you want to stay within. Piggybacking on an old post isn’t super effective, and we do go through and clear out old posts from time to time. DM me or any of the other moderators if you need any assistance with starting a new thread. We’re happy to help! To DM me, tap on the profile pic to the left of this post. On my profile page, there is an envelope icon that will bring up the right form.

I suggest weighing how much labour is involved in fixing these, and decide whether or not you want to spend a whole lot of time, additional materials and then money, or just go straight to spending a little money. You’re right, you will have to grind them down and reapply a better kiln wash. Sanding isn’t necessary if you’re applying kiln wash. If you don’t own a grinder, you have to get that, plus any PPE you don’t own yet. It’s a loud, messy job that takes an afternoon, but isn’t the end of the world. It’s what I’d recommend if you hadn’t mentioned the warping which you were compensating for by flipping. If you use a different kiln wash, washes will all eventually flake off. So you won’t be able to flip them anymore without chips getting into the pieces below. If you’ve got the means, just skip to getting new shelves. If you get the thicker corderite ones, they don’t warp, so kiln washing one side is fine. If you spend a little more for lighter hollow core or carbide, they’re more money but are usually a once in a lifetime purchase. Carbide have the bonus of not really holding onto glaze drips.

I have a friend that had to go through medically supervised, in-hospital lead chelation treatment because her employer was using a lead based clear lowfire glaze in an insufficiently ventilated kiln, circa 2001. Negative stars, do not recommend. It was a paint your own pottery place, my friend only worked there for a handful of months, and we had just been through years of school that made it clear lead was not to be used in pottery practice if you enjoy your health. Her employer was “old school” though, and thought the “college kids” were just being “paranoid.” It’s only paranoia if nothing’s out to get you. Given that kilns can last decades with relatively simple repairs and the owner went out of business, it’s reasonable to think that this kiln was sold and might still be out there. Circumstances don’t even have to involve deliberate deception. Lots of folks also have no idea what’s in their glazes and don’t realize that it can be hidden in colourants or frits. I don’t think you need to avoid all manual kilns, but testing them for lead is just sensible good practice, like getting a home or a car inspection. You passing on a kiln that tested positive for lead is a cause for celebration, rather than FOMO. There will always be more used kilns that come along.

The cracks in the bottom are less concerning than the corrosion on the cover on the electrics. As a Cress owner, if anything inside that box is corroded or shot, leave it: they should be paying someone to haul it away, not charging for it. While replacing any individual part is quite straightforward, Cress wiring diagrams are arcane and ridiculous, and they are NOT easy to troubleshoot. Even my kiln tech had trouble with it, and as helpful as Arturo at Cress can be, he can’t do much over the phone.

Another method is to write your post on your desktop and save. To add photos directly from your phone, log into the forum via your phone’s browser and edit your post to add the photo. Most newer phones will give you an option to resize when you select the photo.

I find the best way around this is to either do it the day/ day after they come out of the kiln, or after you unpack after a show. The first is preferable, because you don’t miss the stuff that gets sold. But some photos are better than no photos.

I’m commenting to help boost this. I’m not the biggest expert, but the timer on a manual kiln should override the kiln sitter and shut everything off. In fact, your kiln shouldn’t be able to turn on at all if the timer’s at 0, even though you can carefully override the sitter. If you need more technical info on your old Duncan kiln, Paragon took over the servicing of them years ago, and they do have all the manuals and wiring diagrams for your model. In the operator’s manual I found there, they do have all the troubleshooting steps to diagnose where a timer switch or a relay might be going sideways. https://eadn-wc04-7751283.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/LX_914_Duncan_Kiln_Owners_Manual.pdf

I think it can be worth holding onto a piece that you think is the start of something interesting in your work, or that you want to look at for a while so an idea can percolate. When you’re ready to sell it, you don’t have to tell people when you made the experiment. It’s not like pottery has an expiry or best before date.

No regrets about this! I’m at at the point where I’ve made so many, I just don’t have physical space to keep them. I do dislike it when there’s voids in a display, but that just means I have to make something else to fill it. I love knowing that pieces have new lives in other homes. Usually my “space filler” pieces are ones that I’m pretty proud of, and I want someone else to like it too.

For student work, you might not even need the gum Arabic and CMC. Commercial underglazes already contain some of those materials, and lots of tutorials out there just suggest leaving the underglaze to evaporate in order to thicken it to the correct consistency.

Another trick is to use a dehumidifier in your workspace. Fans create directional air movement, and can cause uneven drying. Denise gave a great workaround, but if you can’t find a suitable cabinet, dehumidifiers will take care of the entire room. Earthenware and terra cotta clays aren’t usually bothered too much by uneven drying, but if you start making larger/wider pieces or decide to try some porcelain, it’s something to keep in the back of your mind.

+1 for E. They should all work to some degree, it’s just a matter of which look you prefer. When working with dark clay, adding a layer of something white, whether it’s slip or underglaze, underneath a colour does make it pop significantly.

I remember having similar issues when I took an extended break from throwing. I found I was opening and making some of my other motions too quickly. Slowing down and giving the wheel time to make full revolutions helped. I was also embarassed to find I was in fact trapping air underneath when I smacked the clay down, because the ball needs to be really crease free. Reclaimed or reused clay that isn’t completely homogenous also gave me grief. I had to switch to a slurry method, and really make sure that the slop was lump free. If I’m wedging together scraps or flopped pieces that have different states of moisture, I find it works better to prepare my clay the day before to allow things to even out.

Before you adjust any large batch of glaze, it’s a good idea to take a sample out and work out the problem on that. I agree with Bill that often glazes do just need a bit more water, especially if you’re working at cone 10. Sometimes though, thinning the glaze in the bucket makes the fired result less desirable. It’s not necessarily wrong, but maybe you don’t like the look of it. In that case you want to adjust how it flows, or the viscosity, with a deflocculant to make it more fluid (darvan) or a flocculant to make it thicker (epsom salts). As to why you’d want to adjust the viscosity of a glaze with water vs flow adjusters, Sue McLeod posted this the other day, and it’s a concise description with lots of images describing just that. (It should open in your browser, even if you don’t have the instagram app.) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn2dMQHOTNP/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I remember doing a technique like that in my silkscreen class way back in the day, only we just used paper instead of cricut vinyl. You adhere the stencil to the outside of the screen, the part that goes against the thing you’re printing on. Flood the screen with your printing “ink” and adhere the stencil to the screen with that. It’s good for simple images and mono printing, anything that doesn’t need registration marks for subsequent colours.

That glaze defect is crawling, which can happen for a few reasons. In your case, it looks like the application of the fat cream went on a bit thick.

Most slip that I can think of that you’d apply to bisque is going to fire dry, not glossy. Which is just something to keep in mind, I don’t know if that’s what you’re after or not. But yes, you can absolutely add mason stains to slip if you want colour. Check the spec sheets online before you go shopping in person for the exact stain: some of them don’t do so well in clay bodies. Ones that get killed by magnesium or need a certain amount of calcium to develop properly might not be your best choices. Lighter colours will need a lot of stain to show, but some greens and blues will only need a percent or two.

That kind of move right there is why Gen z isn’t wrong for thinking the Elders need therapy*! Hi and welcome to the forum, @Lbraddock! We don’t usually lead with stories like that, but it’s never dull here. After my left eyelid stops twitching, we should get back to the sawdust. Okay. A little bit of fine sawdust that you hadn’t initially noticed on the board likely won’t hurt anything. If it’s wedged in thoroughly, it might not even leave noticeable voids. Unless there was a lot of it and it was from something like pressure treated lumber or MDF, I can’t even see it being an issue burning out in the bisque. If you’re handbuilding and not throwing, I wouldn’t even worry about it. If you’re throwing, it depends on your tolerance for gritty textures. If you’re really concerned about it and it’s just a few pounds, you could use it for waster cookies under glaze tests, or cone packs. *edited to add: I’m making a broad generalization with that statement, based on the comments my kids make to me when I tell them similar stories from my life. I’m 20-30 years older than Gen Z myself, and am included in their “elder” category. Getting therapy doesn’t mean someone is crazy, and I think that therapy and good mental health is for everyone.