neilestrick

The match test is difficult, especially since the draw changes as the kiln heats up, and as the lid gaps open as the firing increases. I'd trust your nose more than anything. But the vent needs a source of air in order to work properly, so open up that hole in the collection box.

If working properly the downdraft should provide pretty good ventilation. Not necessarily 100% though. You may smell fumes during wax burnout, but for the bulk of the firing you shouldn't smell much. You should still be able to be in the room without discomfort. It's probably starved for air since it's only drawing through the small hole in the kiln. Open up the holes in the connection box.

It's a balance between room air and kiln air.

What did you use to connect the duct to the kiln? Whatever it is, it must have holes in it. With only the little hole in the kiln, you're starving the fan for air. Also, the fan must draw in room air through those holes to cool the air being pulled from the kiln. Once you get that sorted, you may find you also need a hole in the lid, as small kilns tend to seal tighter.

As for a shortage of some material, I require a clay body that vitrifies, electricity for the kiln, and the ability to make some glazes. There are a lot of possibilities with the clay and glazes, so it would have to be a pretty serious shortage of multiple materials for either of those to be a problem. Another potential issue, and I don't think it's going to happen any time soon, is the pollution from kilns. I think that at some point, probably a decade or more away still, there will be emissions limits placed on kilns, as least in commercial settings like my studio. Meeting those emission standards could be cost prohibitive for many small studios. I think about these things a lot, as my career is 100% dependent on all things in the studio ceramics world staying fairly constant, and I've been in the ceramics world long enough to see how materials shortages can mess things up. I've always avoided specialty glazes that use and worked with fairly simple materials so that I'm less likely to have to make big changes to my work due to shortages.

This. My thumbs and a couple of my fingers have started to be painful in the joints, sometimes to the point that they throb for a couple of days after heavy use. I'm seeing my hand doctor and wearing a brace on one thumb at night, and I've seen some improvement, so that's good. I could always do the cinnamon roll tendon surgery on my thumbs if needed, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. I just want to make sure my hands won't limit my activities in retirement when I'll have time to do some of the other things I enjoy doing like woodworking and fishing.

Red iron oxide. It's in about half of my studio glazes. Sometimes it's the main colorant, in others it's used to tone down the brightness of other colorants. No other oxide can make as many colors RIO, it just depends on glaze formula, temperature, and firing method.

I agree, probably the ArkLes. I think there's a good chance it's already wired up correctly, just need to disconnect the upper switch and deal with the ground.

No, you don't need a special plug, just get one from the hardware store. Power cords should be rated for 105C, but I work on a lot of kilns, especially older kilns, that have 90C cords, and they tend to hold up fine.

Yep, that's a 4 wire plug. So assuming the switch hasn't been replace with something else, you'll want to replace the plug with the 14-30. It looks like in the pic you posted that there are 4 wires in the cord, so that's good. Cut them back to fresh wire and install the correct plug and it'll be good to go. Then we just have to address the wiring in the box to make sure it's still set up properly.

@Bill Kielb Great chart! Thanks for posting it!

That switch is different than the one on the other kiln we were dealing with. Could be someone already swapped it out for a full 240v switch. Might be a good idea to send pics to Paragon to see what they say before moving forward with the 4 wire setup. Also, if you could measure the element resistance that would be helpful, and might give some other options for repair.

@Bill Kielb Here we go again! Yes, according to the wiring diagram for that kiln it should be a 4 wire setup. The only difference with this one is that it only has two elements, not 4 like the other one. @Neosquid post a picture of the plug, as well as a picture of the switch on the control box. If you know how, open up the control box and take a picture of the back side of the switch, too. There's a chance the kiln is wired wrong and won't work, or at best is wired wrong and not totally up to modern safety codes. It would be a fairly simple fix, though.

That kiln should be plugged into a 20 amp circuit. Kiln Sitters are good. Otherwise you have to watch cones and it off manually, with no safety backup system.

The speckles in the clay body I use at my studio is from granular manganese. I'd run a test with both the manganese and magnetite and see if there's a difference in how it looks in your clay body. Plus your old supplier can probably tell you which they used. With a well vented kiln I wouldn't worry about the fuming.

You'll want the top of the wheel head to be about hip level, so probably too short at 28". Put it on cinder blocks and adjust from there.

The thicker would be good, but there are a lot of other considerations when making elements. I'd trust Euclids opinion though. If they think it'll work then do it.

My bad. I misread.

Dribble some slip into the cracks from the outside, let it set up, then fill the mold. My concern with adding clay between the mold pieces before assembly is that it's going to be very difficult to get a thin enough layer that won't affect how the mold goes together. It's worth trying both methods, though.

It's very clean! Fire it up and see what happens.

It's shivering, and it's not all that uncommon on low fire white bodies. Is this clay right out of the box or recycled? Definitely try bisque firing a little hotter and see if that helps.

It depends. Some colors will probably survive just fine, others will burn out, others will darken or change color. The glaze you're using could also affect the colors. You'll have to test to know for sure.

I assume you mean the digital controller? What you'll need depends entirely on what year it was built. The burner system has gone through a couple of designs, and several different controllers were used over the years. Post a pic of what you've got.

Getting rid of all the timers and relays is a good thing. Simplify! My other thought is to replace the terminal bricks with Skutt terminal bricks, which are a close fit. They require a little bit of filing to lower the element groove at the corners, but they work. With those you could then use 6 elements that wrap twice instead of 12 elements that wrap once, which would lower element costs quite a bit and make sourcing elements a lot easier.

It's a horrible kiln in terms of ease of use, and there are several versions that are just dissimilar enough to make it even more confusing. I have ideas about how to make them more user-friendly and less expensive to maintain, but it's not stuff that someone without kiln repair knowledge can do, so at this point we just need to keep this thread going and hope that more and more people contribute to it as a knowledge base.