neilestrick

The belt height difference shouldn't matter, nor should the slight wobble in the large pulley. To me it sounds like the bearing. Is everything tight at the bearing?

The wobble in the large pulley shouldn't affect anything. I've seen that in many wheels. If you're getting a rhythmic knock then it's most likely related to the belt, either a flat spot or a bump. Another possibility is that something in the belt system is loose and slipping. Check all set screws and such. If all else fails try a new belt.

Shouldn't be a problem. The temperature change won't be extreme or fast enough to cause a problem, and freezing is only an issue when water is involved. If the clay body isn't sufficiently vitrified and absorbs moisture and then freezes it can crack, or in the case of a planter, if the wet soil freezes and expands it can crack the pot. You won't be in either of those situations at the market so you'll be fine.

Personally, I would not pay $700 for a wheel that old. If the control board or motor goes out on it, it'll be $500 for a new one. Better to save up for a new one that you know will work for another 40 years.

The cone in the sitter (small cone or bar only, not a large cone ) should be bent to 90 degrees. Adjust accordingly. If that doesn't match up with a shelf cone then try the next cone up in the sitter.

Welcome to the forum! Is the sitter shutting it off because the timer gets to zero, or because the weight is dropping and kicking out the power button? If it's getting to zero, then you just need to set it to more time until you figure out how long a firing is actually going to take. The sitter timer is just a countdown timer- it has nothing to do with how long the kiln will take to get to temperature. When it hits zero it turns it off, regardless of how hot the kiln is. If the weight is dropping too early, then you need to adjust the sitter. Manual attached. Kiln-Sitter Models P & K Operating Manual.pdf

Well done!

HERE is a good PVC size chart. Different types of pipe are measured differently- some by ID some by OD. They all come in various thicknesses as well.

Remove the black rod and see if that gear will turn any further and stop the wheel. If not, then clean it up and try again. If it still won't stop, and the controller adjustments don't stop it, then you need a new potentiometer. If it does stop, then you need to adjust the position of the black rod on the gear, probably by adjusting the other end.

I'd shoot some WD-40 into the bearing and see if that drives out anything that may be causing the squeal. Otherwise you can get a replacement motor much cheaper online than from the kiln manufacturer. Search 'Dayton 1TDP7' and you'll find lots of options. Generally they're around $90, but sometimes you can find them for $65-70.

Is it as glossy as it should be? Looks underfired to me, which could account for the bubbles if it's reaching the bubbling stage of melting but not going hot enough for them to smooth out.

If you're adding to moist clay, you're going to have the mix the heck out of it in order to get good dispersal of the neph sye, especially since you're adding such a small percentage. I would definitely mix the neph sye with water and hit it with a blender so there are no chunks before adding it to the body.

There will always be some leakage around the lid. Totally normal. Best not to mess with loose fiber unless you really need to.

If the hi/low settings don't help, then you need to make an adjustment in the pedal in the way that the movement of the pedal corresponds to the position of the potentiometer. Basically the position of the pedal and the gear on the potentiometer are out of sync. Can you post some pictures of the pedal guts from a side angle? Does that bar running down the middle attach to the gear at the end and the silver rod in the middle?

Are you slab building the mugs or making molds? PVC pipe works great, you just have to wrap a paper towel around it so the clay doesn't stick if you're using slabs.

The hole in the lid is probably bigger than you need. Plug it. Most kilns are leaky enough that they don't really need holes in the lid, so I would try it without making any holes first, you can always add them later.

120/125 volts are the same thing. The difference between this plug and regular household plug is that the kiln has a 20 amp plug, , whereas most household outlets are 15 amps. You can only plug it into a receptacle that is wired for that amperage. You'll need to have an electrician upgrade the wires and outlet for whatever receptacle you plan to use. Code requires that the kiln be on a breaker that is 25% greater than the draw of the kiln, so it should actually be on a 25 amp circuit and have a 30 amp power cord and plug on it.

Overbuild the stand. Any flexing of the metal will result in cracking of the floor slab, so make it really, really stiff. Use casters that are hard enough that they won't flatten when the kiln is just sitting there. Polyurethane wheels can develop flat spots, and the heat from the kiln can exacerbate the flattening. Steel or hard plastic casters are a better choice.

Are you trying to do a traditional pit firing, or are you trying to use the pit as a kiln? Photos won't load, and I won't totally understand what you've done until I see the photos. But a typical pit firing does not use forced air, and if you're trying to do a typical pit firing then I wouldn't mess with it at all. That air is what's causing the kiln to get too hot in some areas. You just don't have any control over how hot or evenly a pit will burn, so it's best to just let the fire do its work on its own, as it won't get too hot if you just let it burn. As soon as you introduce air flow, whether from a fan or from natural draft like a chimney in a wood kiln, you will increase the temperature that the kiln can reach. Without proper controls to manage the air flow and a way to measure the temperatures in the kiln (cones or pyrometer) you won't have any idea what's actually going on in there and you'll get hot spots and cold spots, especially in a pit that not's evenly insulated and doesn't have any real direction for the air flow.

@Lola Rosier If you need to vent both heat and fumes, then go with an overhead hood, like the one Vent-A-Kiln makes. If you have a low ceiling get the wall mounted swing arm. If you're only worried about fumes then get a downdraft vent. The Orton vent is really cheap on Amazon right now. I'm not a big fan of the spring mounted cup since it can be difficult to get it to sit evenly against the bottom of the kiln and can easily be knocked out of alignment, so I prefer to screw the cup to the side of the kiln near the bottom. From a safety standpoint either one is a good choice. If you have a window and a fan that can bring cool air into the space, get the downdraft and use the window for cooling since the downdraft will be half the price of the hood.

Used kilns are always an option, you just need to make sure the bricks are in good shape. Everything else can be replaced fairly easily if you're somewhat handy. Manual kilns can be converted to digital, but expect to spend about $1000 to do so.

IMO venting is required. A downdraft vent will increase the life of your elements and generally make glazes look better, in addition to saving your lungs. Even if you're not in the room, all that tiny particulate matter that's in the fumes will be landing all over everything in your studio, which isn't good. A downdraft vent only vents fumes, though, so depending on your setup you may also need a way to vent the heat coming off the kiln. That could be as simple as cross-ventilation between two windows, or a fan in a window near the kiln. Vent-A-Kiln makes a great overhead hood that pulls out heat and fumes, and is a good option if you need both. Vents need a path to outdoors, so that may mean drilling a hole in the wall or roof, of you can rig up a board in a window, either temporary or permanent. Sliding windows are easy to fit a plywood board into when the vent is in use. For a permanent setup you can remove the window sash completely and install a board. Here's an example of a semi-permanent board that's wedged tight against the window frame, with weatherstripping between them for a good seal:

When we look at the power that a kiln has, we look at the wattage. For instance, a Skutt KM1027-3 or L&L e23T-3 on 240 volt service pulls 11,520 watts whether it's on single or 3 phase. Watts are what you pay for, so the cost of firing will be the same whether on single or 3 phase. Where the difference comes in is that 3 phase allows you to achieve that wattage with lower amperage. A typical breaker box can handle up to 200 amps, so on 3 phase you can hook up more stuff before you max out the box. A kiln that will pull 48 amps single phase service will only pull 28 amps on 3 phase since you're diving the pull between 3 wires instead of just 2. So if you were hooking up multiple kilns you could do 3 kilns on 3 phase and use fewer amps than 2 kilns on single phase. The math from single to 3 phase is to divide the single phase amperage by the square root of 3 (1.73). Another place you'll see a benefit of 3 phase kilns is in some 10 cubic foot kilns that are meant to be plug-and play (don't need to be hardwired). In order for a kiln to have a plug it has be under 50 amps. If you look at the Skutt KM1227-3 or the L&L e28T-3, they pull 48 amps on 240 volt single phase service, which means they only have enough power to get to cone 8. But 50 amps gives you lots of room to add more power on 3 phase service, so L&L takes their 240 volt 3 phase kiln and bumps it up to 16,600 watts, which is only 40 amps on 3 phase, which gives it more than enough power to get to cone 10. 3 phase power can be less expensive and easier to install because the lower amperage allows for smaller wires, disconnect boxes, fuses, etc. So to answer your question, yes, get 3 phase is if it's available.

If you plan to glaze fire to cone 6 (2230F), then you want a kiln that can fire to cone 10. That way your elements can wear quite a bit before they need to be replaced. A cone 10 kiln will get about 40% more element life than a cone 8 kiln when firing to cone 6. You order the kiln according to the electrical service in the building. You can run a single phase kiln in a building that has 3 phase service. You cannot run a 3 phase kiln in a building that only has single phase service. There is no good reason to buy a manual kiln. Get a digital kiln, and get the new touch screen controller. They're easier to program than the old controllers, are more user-friendly for custom programs, and make diagnosing problems a lot easier. It's not a bad idea to have a small kiln for testing or small batches, and a larger kiln for producing work. You have to have the proper electrical circuit run for each one, though, so buying a small kiln now and a larger one later can get expensive in electrician costs. I would not buy anything until you know where you're going to put it. The electrical requirements are different for every kiln, so you first have to make sure that the electrical system in your building can handle the kiln you want.

Raku systems are made to fire fast, and that's really their only concern. If you plan to glaze fire to a specific cone and use glazes, then you want far more control than a raku system will provide, especially if you plan to bisque fire in this kiln. Firing slow at the beginning can be very difficult in gas kilns. Personally, I prefer power burners since they can easily be sized for a wide range of outputs, and in smaller kilns you can just use one burner. They are a little more complicated to build than a Venturi system, but it's something you can build from hardware store parts fairly easily. Whichever way you go, you definitely need to have some sort of safety system, at bare minimum a Baso valve and pilot light on each burner. If you build a power burner, you can also easily (and should) add a solenoid valve on the gas line in addition to the Baso, a blower speed control, and even a hi-temp shutoff controller. In regards to the high vs low pressure question, I have never used a high pressure system so I can't really help you there. I would definitely call Ward Burner, though. Nobody knows more about kiln burners than Ward.