neilestrick

The controllers come preset from the factory, so aside from max speed I wouldn't make any adjustments. No idea on the extra terminals, but these are not made specifically for Skutt wheels so they probably have other applications that they can be used for. Call Skutt for more precise answers.

If you fire to cone 6 rather than cone 10, you're going to get almost triple the life from your elements, and the bricks will last a lot longer. Find a clay body that vitrifies at cone 6.

Came here to say this. I'd just rig a top mount. For what you're going to pay a machine shop you'll probably come out the same or even ahead and have an easier time servicing it in the future.

Any kiln posts work with any shelves. Get 1.5" wide posts, not the skinny ones. Get square, not triangle.

Slow cooling at this portion of the firing probably won't make any difference. If the cracking is caused by slow cooling, it's happening at the lower and of the cooling, either during quartz inversion or from opening the kiln too early. If the cracking is caused by friction with the shelf, then silica or grog on the shelf or a waster slab should fix it.

I'm only firing the waster slab one time. No need to bisque the waster. I do bisque fire my pots.

Waster slabs cannot be reused. They need to shrink with the clay, and once they are fired in a glaze firing they won't shrink any more. They are not usually necessary in a bisque firing because very little shrinkage occurs in the bisque, however if you're getting cracking in the bisque then it wouldn't hurt to try it. About half the total shrinkage occurs in drying, the other half when fired to vitrification. Silica would probably work, but alumina would be better. Buy 1/4 pound of alumina hydrate, or whatever the smallest amount you can get is, and mix a little in some wax resist. The wax makes it easy to apply, and alumina is very refractory so the piece won't stick to the waster slab. A very thin layer of kiln wash would work, too.

Shivering and crazing are opposites. In shivering the clay is shrinking more than the glaze, in crazing the glaze is shrinking more than the clay. So for both to happen to the same glaze would be very unusual unless there's some sort of inconsistency in the batch of clay. What cone are you bisque firing to? What cone are you glaze firing to?

With a wide flat bottom like that I would fire them on a waster slab. The slab can be very thin, and can even be cracked in pieces. No need to bisque fire the slab, but put alumina wax on it to prevent the pot from sticking to it.

In my opinion, the flat top design is more work than an arch and less durable. I think the flat top was designed for people that are afraid to do an arch, or just don't understand the physics of arches. I've seen them done two ways- one using rod threaded through the bricks, and one that just uses compression at the corners. I don't know what the size limit would be on the compression-only method, if any. The threaded rod method is a ton of work and a big mess what with drilling holes in all the bricks. I used a compression-type flat top design on my large top loading electric kiln and it worked very well, but an arch was not possible on that kiln and it only had to span about 30 inches of open space.

The car design is doable at any size, but it is generally reserved for large kilns that would be difficult to load otherwise. It's a lot of work, so a small kiln may not be worth the effort unless you have a specific need for it. Lots of welding, and lots of metal that will greatly increase the cost of the kiln. Some specifics: Easiest to do with two power burners coming in from the back. You can do it with bottom-mounted venturi burners, but it's a lot of stuff under the kiln with the car. If you look at the platform, there's a wider section at the bottom that goes under the bottom row of bricks in the main body, and a raised portion in the middle that just fits inside the bottom row. This provides a decent seal. The track is just two pieces of angle iron with the angle pointing upward, and the wheels of the car are grooved to run along the track. Beyond that you could engineer it yourself pretty easily based on the picture above.

Check the back of your controller. Is there a ribbon connector at the bottom? That connector is what connects the touchpad to the circuit board, so if it comes loose the buttons won't work. If there is one, pull it out of the circuit board, wipe it with a dry cloth, and reinsert it. Check all other connections to the board, too.

I have some students who feel better when they work the clay, others who feel worse and have to watch how much they do. I think it's different for each person.

If you run 6ga wire now you'll be able to use a 48 amp kiln on it later, which is good for most home studio sized kilns.

Yes! I've never had an issue with my CoreLite shelves. I've put over 700 firings on some of them and never had to flip them. Even my big 14x28 shelves stayed flat for hundreds of firings. I cut those down to 25" half rounds last year and they're still going strong.

Sometimes fuse holders go bad or get loose and start to lose contact, so that could also be the cause of the problem. Start with the simple fix- replace the fuse- and go from there.

In addition to what everyone else has said, the glazes may run more. Depending on where it is in the kiln, it may be hotter than your typical gas firing, and the ash can flux out the glaze and make it more fluid.

Double check the serial plate- that kiln pulls 30 amps, but code requires that kilns be on a breaker that is rated 25% greater than the draw of the kiln, so it needs a 40 amp breaker. Your electrician probably won't know that and will want to put it on a 30 amp breaker, so make sure he is aware of the code. The neutral should be a separate wire from the ground. The kiln should have a 4 prong plug.

Upright with cardboard between them. Strap or brace them so they can't fall over.

Just do a slow bisque to cone 05. Put a few shelves in with cones at the bottom, middle, and up top. Put the bottom shelf on 1/2" or 1" posts. There isn't anything on the top row of bricks from the factory.

How may firings have you done with the current set of elements?

Is it manual or digital? It all depends on condition.

What is the actual voltage of your electrical service? How old are the elements? Have you measured the element resistance? What is DIAG?

The Sitter is just the shutoff device. The kiln itself has low-med-hi settings. Pretty much all kilns used Sitters for a few decades. All kilns of all brands with that control configuration work the same, and a typical firing schedule is 1 hour on low, 1 hour on medium, 1 hour on high. You can download a Sitter manual by Googling it.

This is a great idea. With the market the way it is right now, there's a good chance someone will want to buy it since factory lead times are still so long. However, if you're going to be there for a year, and your studio is ready to go, I would go ahead and hook it up and fire it. A year is a long time.