plumcreative

Thanks

Here’s another question. My kiln is now still about 200F. Can I load it and start?

Thanks. Have you ever heard of anyone damaging kiln by opening when too hot?

Can someone tell be a schedule to fire bright gold luster as fast as possible. The test I did took over 20 hours. It came out great but I read that some people do it much faster— like 4 hours. I am guessing that part of my problem is that I am firing one small piece in a 6 cu ft kiln so it takes longer to heat up but I have to leave at 10 am tomorrow to go to destination wedding and I am making the cake topper. (Note: I am one of the worst procrastinators in the world). I did my firing to cone 018. 110F to 1267F, 5min hold, then 9999 to 80. I am wondering if it will help to not run the fan during the first part of the temperature rise and only run it during cooling. Thanks for any guidance you can give. Cheers, Amy

We Hi all. Can someone tell me highest safe temp at which I can open kiln. I need to cool it as fast as possible. Note: There is only a test object in kiln and I don’t care if it breaks. I just want to know the safe temp for the kiln itself. (I know normally, to keep ware safe, I shouldn’t open hotter than around 150.) Thanks Amy

Thanks Babs. I found it. Super helpful. For anyone else interested you can read some really detailed info here:

Hi Curt, I've only been running my own kiln for about 2 years so I have not experimented much with varying kiln schedules. We use a cone 6 schedule for glaze based on schedule I found in Mastering Cone 6 Glazes. I don't know much about changing the schedule to be 5.5. I asked Julie Hregdovic, technical director at Standard about changes to schedule in reference to the 266 and she said "The only thing I do differently with my glaze firing is I slow down the kiln at 1900 degrees to 175 degrees an hour to 2198 and hold for 5 min then shut off." Do you think that would be sufficient? I use an L&L kiln with a Genesis Kiln Controller so it is programmed with cool down stages. I also have a downdraft vent which runs through entire process. Can you recommend changes to our glaze schedule to bring it down to 5.5 cone that I can test with the 266? My goal is to try to make as minimal change as possible so glazes will hopefully not change a lot. Thanks for any additional advice you can give. Cheers, Amy Our cone 6 Rate °F/hr To °F Hold 1 99 230 60min 2 360 1976 0 3 153 2192 15min 4 495 1832 0 5 126 1400 0 6 9999 86 0

Wow! Thanks all for the awesome details everyone. I really like to learn this stuff. Everything to do with ceramic making is overwhelming sometimes but little by little I think I may know about 5% of it all by the time I leave this earth ;>)

PotterPutter, we normally fire bisque to 05. If we go to 04 will we see much change in glaze absorption? And do you think we would see much difference in glaze going from cone 6 to cone 5.5? Timbo Heff (in another thread) seems to have similar thinking as Min— he said it helps to hold bisque at 1525 (below point of sintering) for a couple hours to give gas more time to escape. (He indicated that this can be done at any bisque firing from 08 to 02.) I really appreciate everyone’s great input. I am starting to formulate a test plan. Cheers, Amy

Thanks for the input everyone. Oregon Brown sounds like something we would like to try but we're all the way on the other side of the country in DC area.

Question for Timbo regarding his info on getting rid of bloat. My studio mate is trying Standard 266 and it bloats about half the time at cone 6 schedule we use (based on Mastering Cone 6 Glazes book). She wants me to change to a cone 5 firing schedule (which is what Standard says will eliminate the acknowledged bloating problem with this clay). Since we use a lot of different cone 6 clays and many different glazes (which I have extensively tested at cone 6), I am reluctant to change everything over because it may change the glaze results and I would prefer to not do all of the testing over again. (I could fire the 266 stuff on its own but that would mean firing almost empty kiln and more kiln sitting for me.) So, question is: If we do the extended bisque you indicated will the bloat-causing gases be gone so we can stay with cone 6 firing for glazes? (Note: I am going to test but wanted to get clarification on the bisque fix since you also said "This will not prevent bloats from overfiring : only not overfiring prevents those".)

I have contacted Standard and they say bloating is definitely an issue with this clay-- so not just a bad batch. My studio-mate fires at another location sometimes and does not have problem with the clay bloating there. They fire at about 5.5. Standard also indicates to fire at cone 5 but I am trying to ascertain the repercussions of doing so. We use a lot of cone 6 glazes which I have tested at cone 6 and would prefer not to redo all that testing. We use different clays in the studio and I fire all together to get full kilns. I don't want to fire the 266 alone in almost empty kiln-- and also, since I am the one doing the kiln watching, I don't want to do more firings than necessary. I really want to know about other peoples experiences with this particular clay and their experiences with differences of glazes when firing cone 5 vs. cone 6. And also if there is any kind of chart or information giving info on strengths of final work fired at the different cones.

Hi all I fire an electric kiln at cone 6 for glaze and have a few questions. We are trying Standard 266 dark brown clay and are experiencing bloating in about half the work. Standard says to fire at cone 5 for the 266 but, in order to not fire almost empty kiln, I would need to combine with projects made with other clays. Also, we use a lot of different glazes and have tasted them at cone 6. So my questions are: 1- Would changing to cone 5 or 5.5 change the results of my glazes? 2- How different is the strength of pottery fired at cone 6 vs. cone 5 ? ( Is there a chart somewhere that shows the difference in strengths for different cones?). I also read somewhere that the bloating can be fixed with change to the bisque firing schedule-- ie: staying longer at highest temp to give the clay time to release the gasses that cause the bloating. Has anyone had experience with this? And, if we decide to try firing to cone 5 or 5.5 can you recommend some firing schedules that would work best for our cone 6 glazes? Cheers, Amy

I have now own two L&L Kilns and the investment is worth it. They now have a smaller front loader than the Paragons-- perfect size for my small studio. And, I added on the Genesis Kiln controller-- it is super. You can easily program it without having to remember a bunch of codes. We have high alumina shelves and have been using them regularly for more than a year. They have not warped and work great. To fit the new kiln better I got 16x16 inch shelves and had some cut in half. Our cuts were kind of ragged-- due to haste-- but they work just fine.

Thanks for the input everyone. You have pretty much confirmed what I already knew but was unwilling to accept ;>) I have some kathal rod and will probably just have to get more of those. I still may see if I can get some high tech thin ceramic rods to test too. If I get any interesting findings I will post. Cheers, Amy