neilestrick

I like to use a darker clay for the mug, and white clay for the medallion. That way I can dip one glaze on the whole thing and still get good contrast between the two. Just make sure the two clay bodies have the same shrinkage rate. I roll out 1/16" thick slabs for the medallions. Anything thicker than that looks pretty bulky. I've used simple rubber stamps that you can order online from any number of places for very little money, and I've used more expensive stamps that make a raised emblem (I think I got them from 4clay.com). I spray the slabs with cooking spray to keep the stamp from sticking. After stamping, I cut out the shape and set the medallion on a rolling pin or pvc pipe so that it can dry in a curve that roughly matches the curve of the mug, and clean up the edges once it has set up. You want the medallion to be as close to leather hard as possible when attaching it, otherwise you risk it cracking as is dries. Also, the stiffer the better so you don't mess up the image. To attach, I do some very light scoring (can't do much since the medallion is so thin) and coat the entire backside of the medallion with slip. I like for the slip to ooze out around the medallion so it gives a really clean edge where it meets the mug. No little voids.

Do you have access to a powered downdraft vent system, like the L&L Vent-Sure or the Skutt Envirovent? Either of those would do a better job than putting a duct by a spy hole. A powered downdraft will do a much better job of reducing kiln corrosion, and it will increase the life of your elements. The downdraft will also run cooler, so you don't need any special double wall ducting, and you can run the duct out a window instead of upward and through the roof. Another option would be to put the kiln near one of the windows, and put a fan in the window blowing out. Crack the garage door a hair for fresh air. That may work, especially with a smaller kiln, however only a downdraft will reduce corrosion and you'll be at the mercy of the weather if you're in an area where it rains a lot or gets cold in the winter.

A downdraft vent is good because it will increase element life and decrease corrosion of the kiln's metal parts. However, like Bill said, having it blow out into the hood is probably not very effective at removing the fumes from the room. With big powerful hoods it'll work pretty well, but not so much with a cooking hood. The hood is not going to catch everything. I would run the downdraft duct all the way to the outside. As for whether or not it needs more fresh air holes, you'll need to measure the temperature of the air in the duct. It should be under 140F. It's a balance between pulling enough air from the kiln to remove the fumes, but not so much that you're bringing too much cold air into the kiln and making it work harder. Ideally, the fresh air hole in the duct should be right at the kiln. Otherwise you're pulling really hot air through that flexible duct, which isn't safe and will degrade the duct very quickly. You're trying to keep the ductwork cool as well as the vent motor.

I think this is the answer. Every time I've actually heard pieces blow up, the kiln was around 500F. It takes a lot longer for the heat to penetrate and cause problems than we realize. So why does Bartlett program their preheat to hold at 180F? Probably because it makes their lives a lot easier. If it was set at 240F, or anything too close to 212F, they would have to educate their users on the subject, and they'd get blamed every time something blew up. They'd be dealing with phone calls and email on the subject every day. 180F works just fine, and it's far enough from the boiling point that if something blows up it's definitely not their fault.

At some point you'll probably need to flip your shelves over to keep them flat, which requires cleaning off all the wash so it doesn't flake of onto the pots below. It's a thankless job even with easy-to-remove kiln wash. With difficult-to-remove wash you're looking at a significant investment of time and effort to get them clean enough to flip.

A silicone grout sealer would probably work, too.

I think you're right. @suz davis The cone should sit on the support bars with the flat side down, with the number facing toward the inside of the kiln. The cone will bend against the spine, not along the flat side. If it's loaded with the flat side facing up, it will bend easier and shut off early.

Also try US Pigment. They still show talc on their website.

Does it sound like the bearing directly beneath the head, or inside where the drive mechanism is? You may have to take off the bottom plate and inspect it.

It doesn't work for running two kilns on one vent, though, because only one kiln can control the vent.

It's odd that they want the peep hole left open for draft. That's a very big hole compared to the small holes that other vent systems use. Worst case you put in the peep hole plug and drill smaller holes like the other vents. Skutt, L&L, and Orton vents can all vent two kilns as well, up to 20 cubic feet of total volume. The Bailey can only handle up to 17 cubic feet. They all sell a kit for adding another kiln to the system, and all can be mounted to the side of the kiln instead of the bottom if needed. I do that a lot with L&L vents on other brands of kilns. Get whichever system is cheapest and meets your needs for kiln volume.

I think they're just referring to the Kiln Sitter. There are Sitter kilns and digital kilns.

You're only shortening the coil by about 4 inches, so the resistance won't change much, and it may very well last about as long as the others. It will be easier to straighten if you heat it, but like Min said it's not totally necessary since it hasn't been fired yet.

The high voltage wires. I don't know if it's corrosion/oxidation or resistance (or both), but it's definitely a heat issue. I don't ever change out the low voltage control wires unless there is visible damage or they're really old and crispy, like when I rebuild an old control box. A Skutt wiring harness includes the wires going into and out of the relays, control wires, but not the element feeder wires. Feeder wires can't be changed easily since Skutt uses crimp connectors, and they don't seem to be the issue when it comes to relays burning out. Bad feeder wires can cause trouble at the element connection, though.

I have not seen any kilns with high output voltages have trouble with relays burning out prematurely. Any time I replace relays and then they burn out within 50 firings, a new wiring harness solves the problem.

I do all my underglaze work on greenware (the dry side of leather hard), because I also do mishima work on everything, which requires the pot to be soft enough to carve lines. Plus the underglazes I use (Speedball) take glaze better if they've gone through a bisque firing. If I wasn't doing mishima I'd apply my underglazes at bone dry, because they dry faster than at leather hard and you can wipe/scrape off mistakes much easier than on bisque. On bisque some colors will stain the clay enough that you can't get it completely clean.

That's definitely possible. Turn it off if it's a hassle, otherwise leaving it as is won't do anything.

In addition to the glaze maybe not being compatible, underglazes generally need at least 2-3 coats to show up well. If you're applying to bone dry ware you can probably get away with 2, but if you're applying to leather hard, you will need 3-4 coats to get good coverage, depending on the color.

Output 4 has 3 different settings, depending on what you are using it for. In standard kilns it's not hookup up to anything, so it doesn't serve any purpose and won't have any affect on your firings if nothing is wired to it.

A cone 10 glaze fired to cone 04 should still be chalky and dry. Double check your glaze. Also, I do not recommend using wire stilts at anything above low fire temps, as they tend to soften and bend.

Are we talking Celsius? What's the max temp rating for that kiln? Some models are only rated to cone 8.

No, but I don't measure it very often. Controller output is rarely ever the problem. Would it be affected by service voltage? I see 240 volts kilns running on services from 230 to 255.

I've measured the output voltage on kiln controllers be anywhere from 11V to 16V, and it has never been an issue. I certainly wouldn't expect it to be the cause of a relay failing in 8 firings, especially if it has been fine for 3 years. It's definitely worth seeing where the voltage is out of whack, though. Wiring can be bad even if it all looks good. I've replaced wiring harnesses on many Skutt kilns because relays were burning out prematurely. The Skutt control boxes run hot.

That's a good sign. Might want to replace the wiring harness. They can cause the relays to fail, and it's a cheap repair.

Ah, they're using the clear relays they used on the older kilns. You can get those HERE. Not as cheap as the black relays, but cheaper than from Skutt. I'd buy two in case something goes wrong again. If you blow another one, check all the wiring connections and make sure nothing has come loose. All the slip-on connectors should be snug, so if necessary crimp them down a little with some needle nose pliers before slipping them on. Make sure no connectors have come loose from their wires. How long did the kiln go before this problem started happening- how many firings did she get from the first relay? Is the control box on that kiln that same size as on the non-SSR model? If so, that's a tiny little control box without much ventilation. The SSR has a heat sink, correct? But the mechanical relay is not getting much cooling because the box is short and doesn't create much chimney action. So you may want to consider adding a small fan to the system if the relay is dying prematurely. You can get a small computer case fan and mount it to the bottom of the control box on the outside, and wire it through the safety relay so it's on whenever the relay is on. If there are louvers on the bottom of the box it can just blow through those, or cut a hole for it if necessary.