Hulk

The oil worked like a dream! We found a 3-in-1 solution, cleaned off the grease, and have a slab roller again. Thanks for the help!

Do you want the metal for the feel of the tool, or would you be happy with something 3D printed? I got a set of letter stamps from an Etsy seller in the font of my choosing, and I think she did other images too.

I love my Mini van as well holds about 80 boxes and booth and payload is 2 tons
Space case hold two canopies and custom top box hold full size Pro Panels-16 mpg no matter what you have in it.
It snugs into a 20 foot parking place with inches to spare. It has a great turning radius -when you leave your driveway you start turning towards the state you wish to end up in and in a day or two you are there.It purrs on cruise control for 400  miles before needing to fill up. Loves to run on straight aways. It has a metal cage so if you are in wreck the load will not kill you (I know someone that that happened to once). It got all the safety features of a special order van in 2010.Rear has interior liner on walls and e-track wall system to hold stuff. Electric drivers seat.Most smaller  electric cars will fit inside it as a bonus feature. Love the mini vans-this is my second one in 22 years and will be my last.

I've seen markers carved from wood and other materials, modeled in clay, and cast in metals - curious to read what other Forum contributors do...
I use a small stylus (ball point pen) to mark my Studio initials (TC) within the foot ring. The edges of the mark I leave rough, for the edges are easy to clean up after bisque fire.
Almost always I fill the mark with a colored glaze or underglaze, wiping with a damp sponge to leave just the mark highlighted.
Unfilled mark, clear glaze over

 
Filled with blue glaze, liner glaze over

 
Filled with blue glaze; here the zircopax is clearly visible in my "clear" liner glaze over this red clay. 

 
I like how this red glaze sometimes picks up blue flecks.

 
I like how these soap dishes came out.

Those last two, sigh, am missing the clay, took some time off to heal up after a fall, then we sold our house and moved, so enjoyed paging through images of my old works!
Looking forward to getting back into it!

I've seen markers carved from wood and other materials, modeled in clay, and cast in metals - curious to read what other Forum contributors do...
I use a small stylus (ball point pen) to mark my Studio initials (TC) within the foot ring. The edges of the mark I leave rough, for the edges are easy to clean up after bisque fire.
Almost always I fill the mark with a colored glaze or underglaze, wiping with a damp sponge to leave just the mark highlighted.
Unfilled mark, clear glaze over

 
Filled with blue glaze, liner glaze over

 
Filled with blue glaze; here the zircopax is clearly visible in my "clear" liner glaze over this red clay. 

 
I like how this red glaze sometimes picks up blue flecks.

 
I like how these soap dishes came out.

Those last two, sigh, am missing the clay, took some time off to heal up after a fall, then we sold our house and moved, so enjoyed paging through images of my old works!
Looking forward to getting back into it!

Thank you so much for all the detailed answers. In the studio I go to or the workshops I followed, we were never told about the hazard of dry clay, oxides etc. I'm planning on setting a small studio at my place, whether it's for me or the others I'd rather be too cautious than not enough. At least I know now that I have to use a respiratory mask when handling powders. I'll try to use stains as much as possible since they are less harmful.

Engobe covered with a liner glaze might be another safer option.
I'd thought Hansen's reference to stains and safety had to do with safety for the potter in the process, but on that page he did line the ware with a black glaze*.
The colorants are the same thing once all melted, whether supplied via stain or raw material, is that true?
The stain is safer to handle.
The potter's safety, that's important too!
Hansen typically (what I can see) liner glazes and makes an argument for it, Liner Glaze (digitalfire.com)
*black glaze, for which he makes a case, in keeping with "Liner glazes can also be colored (if they are well tested and demonstrably non-leaching)."

When coated at all, the knob and tube of old I've seen had a loose sleeve of woven white fiber -asbestos - which thermally rates rather well would be my guess, else bare copper between the knobs.
Google images of wire coated with blackened/tarred material may have been ubiquitous, I just haven't seen it in person.
No doubt three wire Romex, when properly sized and protected by its breaker, is superior in every way.

Engobe covered with a liner glaze might be another safer option.
I'd thought Hansen's reference to stains and safety had to do with safety for the potter in the process, but on that page he did line the ware with a black glaze*.
The colorants are the same thing once all melted, whether supplied via stain or raw material, is that true?
The stain is safer to handle.
The potter's safety, that's important too!
Hansen typically (what I can see) liner glazes and makes an argument for it, Liner Glaze (digitalfire.com)
*black glaze, for which he makes a case, in keeping with "Liner glazes can also be colored (if they are well tested and demonstrably non-leaching)."

I've seen markers carved from wood and other materials, modeled in clay, and cast in metals - curious to read what other Forum contributors do...
I use a small stylus (ball point pen) to mark my Studio initials (TC) within the foot ring. The edges of the mark I leave rough, for the edges are easy to clean up after bisque fire.
Almost always I fill the mark with a colored glaze or underglaze, wiping with a damp sponge to leave just the mark highlighted.
Unfilled mark, clear glaze over

 
Filled with blue glaze, liner glaze over

 
Filled with blue glaze; here the zircopax is clearly visible in my "clear" liner glaze over this red clay. 

 
I like how this red glaze sometimes picks up blue flecks.

 
I like how these soap dishes came out.

Those last two, sigh, am missing the clay, took some time off to heal up after a fall, then we sold our house and moved, so enjoyed paging through images of my old works!
Looking forward to getting back into it!

@Pyewackette, is it possible you are not centering in the bottom outside of your clay when centering, leaving a small area where the clay causes your hand to rise unevenly on your centering and pulling. Use and upside down thumbnail to scrape the clay on the wheel head into the clay you are centering? I center with a slight cup to my hands at the base opposite the thumb, this forces the clay to move into the ball being centered.
Hope you can understand my description.
 
best,
Pres

ITS A MIRACLE!  I went in this past Monday and the new clay was suddenly firmer than its been in over a year.  I couldn't believe it.  I asked about it and yes, I wasn't imagining it, this latest batch was firmer on purpose.  I'm told the hand builders like it soft and smooshy (I certainly don't when I'm hand building so I guess I'm the weirdo yet again).  I have been trying to make hay while the sun shines, because the next batch might be soft and smooshy again.  Apparently hand builders rate over wheel throwers LOL!  It was soooo much better to throw with, and I didn't have to wedge it at all!
My cell phone camera stand is supposed to be here today or tomorrow so I can take pictures of myself mangling cylinders and what not.  I've been trying to emulate Florian Gadsby and his technique of pulling walls up into a cone - so far I have not succeeded in pulling it inward like that, but at least they are now going up more or less straight LOL! Before my hands just kept trying to turn everything into a bowl right off the bat.  I have hope that I will eventually go from merely avoiding pulling the walls OUT to actually being able to guide them inward with that first pull like he does.  Its already helping to overcome my auto-bowl handicap. 
I struggle still with getting the body off center of the base.  I can feel it now when it happens but I still can't necessarily fix it.  I managed to fix or avoid doing that for one whole day - then the next day, back to knocking the body off center of the base again.  It makes for some very funny looking vases LOL!
I can feel when things go wrong now.  I can't always tell HOW it goes wrong, but I can feel it once its gone wrong and I can mostly identify the type of wrongness.  I think I've got enough stuff for practice glazing (depending on whether or not anything blows up in the kiln) - so I'll be going back to just pulling cylinders until they collapse.  At the moment I am no good at pulling up thin walls.  My hands/fingers move up the wall and it pulls up a little bit but I still end up with thick walls by the time the clay has been overworked.  But I keep on trying!

So there’s a few points here I think. First, safety, and next practicality. All of the below assumes you have your heart set on a black and white marbling combo at cone 6 (1200 C) in an electric kiln. 
Safety:Most of the risks involved in pottery are to the potter, not the end user. Your exposure to any of those materials is going to be greater than anyone who’s using the end product, because the materials aren’t bonded to anything the way they are in fired ceramic.
That’s not to say that there are no risks, or that you don’t have to mind your chemistry so you have a stable glaze. But your safety is the most at risk in this scenario. Worry a little about your customer, but worry more about your own health.
Because the example is Manganese, most of that oxide’s dangers come from inhalation. Humans only absorb about 5% of the manganese they swallow, and it’s not absorbed through the skin. (Source cited here). So if you are not working next to a kiln full of manganese glazed wares while it’s firing, and you’re using good housekeeping practices that reduce airborne dry clay that uses manganese as a colourant, your chances of injury are lowered. That said, if you’re firing in reduction, using iron in any form as a colourant would be a much safer option if you don’t mind a very dark brown/warm black colour (disclaimer to come). If you’re firing in oxidation, a stain is safer than manganese.
Stains are designed to be more stable/less harmful than certain colouring oxides, and they create colours that are harder to get with oxides alone. They’re not soluble in their unfired form, so you don’t absorb them through your skin or anything like that. Some still contain spinel, so breathing the dust is still bad for your lungs, but only in the same way dry clay is. 
From a practical standpoint, If you’re making marbled clay by adding a colourant to a white clay body, this is the best method to ensure pieces don’t crack apart along the marbling lines. So what are the pros and cons of manganese, iron and black stain?
Iron and manganese are both pretty inexpensive. Iron is a lot safer to use for the potter than manganese, but doesn’t give a true black by itself. Both however, will off gas a lot more than a stain will. Black clay has been very popular the last few years, but all of them that use manganese or umber are prone to bloating if fired to cone 6 (roughly 1200 C). Manganese dioxide begins to break down into manganese oxide at 1080 C. This turns it into a more active flux, leading to bloating. The release of extra oxygen bubbles all creates a lot of pinholing or glaze blistering that is pretty difficult to resolve in an opaque glaze, and will make a clear glaze cloudy with micro bubbles. The few clays that I’ve seen that use iron or iron containing minerals don’t bloat any more than a normal red clay body would if overfired. But you’ll still have issues if you’re using a clear glaze because of that clouding. You can get a clear glaze to go *mostly* clear over an iron bearing clay, but it’s a lot of work and testing.
If you use a black mason stain in particular, they’re pretty refractory and don’t have any Loss On Ignition values, so that means they’re not loosing gasses. Solves all of those above problems, but they do cost a bit more. 
 
 

I feel it is similar to the way we are making metal oxides safer by forming them into a glass with silica and alumina but the stain is already doing some of that for us. I am unsure if in melting the glaze it then breaks down whatever crystal matrix they formed in the stain and releases metal oxides into the melt, I assume that is more temperature related and the hotter you go the more metal oxide is release and no different to using raw oxides except in the % of the recipe as stains seem to need less for the same colour.
 
There is a bit on his stains page that says "These processes render them more resistant to dissolving in glaze melts, or melting themselves, compared to the metal oxides from which they are made." https://digitalfire.com/glossary/ceramic+stain

I would say in general colouring the clay and glazing with a transparent gloss is going to be the safer option for the end user but there's so many variables in pottery that there's no one size fits all answer. 
 
https://digitalfire.com/picture/L9hivqD172
On this page Tony says "Stains are inherently much safer to use than raw metal oxide colorants because they are sintered as colorant/stabilizer blends. And much less is needed." So it is possible to make a black/coloured glaze that's food safe but it requires testing.

Plan to jump up, aye that!
We're shopping for a new home this last several weeks; insufficient power* has been a rather significant point against some of them...
A few work lives ago we specified four pair of fiber optic for a production line upgrade**. "Four, are you ...kidding me, why?"
"We need one pair now, one to back up that one for when you guys break it."
"And?"
"And the data reqs always go up, never down. The third line is for that day when it may be needed, and the fourth line is its backup."
They put in three. One is for sure broken, which leaves one spare (...twenty years ago). Told you, din' I?
,)
*Where I'm looking for a 60 amp circuit for my new kiln and whatever will be required for my Studio's heat pump, then add lighting, and 110v outlets.
A 100 amp subpanel isn't always sufficient, and as a main panel, it just isn't enough for our needs.
**from the old "thinlan" which was somewhat slow and required frequent repair.

Plan to jump up, aye that!
We're shopping for a new home this last several weeks; insufficient power* has been a rather significant point against some of them...
A few work lives ago we specified four pair of fiber optic for a production line upgrade**. "Four, are you ...kidding me, why?"
"We need one pair now, one to back up that one for when you guys break it."
"And?"
"And the data reqs always go up, never down. The third line is for that day when it may be needed, and the fourth line is its backup."
They put in three. One is for sure broken, which leaves one spare (...twenty years ago). Told you, din' I?
,)
*Where I'm looking for a 60 amp circuit for my new kiln and whatever will be required for my Studio's heat pump, then add lighting, and 110v outlets.
A 100 amp subpanel isn't always sufficient, and as a main panel, it just isn't enough for our needs.
**from the old "thinlan" which was somewhat slow and required frequent repair.

Tom find the house of your dreams and just have the service upgraded as part of the sale-or just after the sale.
I cannot wrap around moving as I'm two months away from living in same place for 50 years
That's also 50 years of improvements dialing it in for aging in place.
200 amps is the norm now for most homes and for me thats a bare minimum .
 

Panels very alot and the brands as well.
This is where an electrician is needed in many cases.
I outgrew a 100 panel in 1986 and went 200amps-looking back a 250 or 275 amp planel would have been a better choice.
My studio feed is 90s amps and since my electric is only 48 amps that still fine. With a well (30amp) and two heat pumps (and another soon) 2 feezers (one for bait) and a solar system and another 100 amp outbuilding it gets complicated fast. Soon will need a 30 amp van outlet as well in parking area. 
When upsizing you should always plan to jump up more than you think

Congrats Gray!
Likely much better to transport fully disassembled, where the lid, bottom, and both sections are isolated from each other and resting on a cushiony flat surface.
Somewhere here in the archives is a write-up on kiln moving by Neil...
There's some advice here:
Long distance moving a kiln - Equipment Use and Repair - Ceramic Arts Daily Community
No doubt you'll get more responses soon...
 

Good point - depends on the panel.
The upgrade we did is like the circled in blue, where the darkened in locations can be filled with the twins or single.

Some panels, not an option, some can be filled top to bottom with twins or singles...

I put in two heat pumps in past few years. Most run on 220v and require a double slot. They do not use much power (low amps) as to being very efficient .We do have a small haet pump in master bedroom that is a single slot 110v unit. They vary depending on size of space ny most are 220V
Most 100 amp main breaker boxes are 12-16 slots depending on brand and age. Lots  will depend on your actual house loads (what you really are using amp wise)
I suggest a good electrican for the job.

Thought I would add here re: tandem breakers. Just was out looking at some old 1970 panel installs and came across a panel that detailed in the diagram how many and where the tandem breakers could go. The answer for this panel - no more than 4 allowed and they need to be at the bottom of the panel. This is a 20 opening panel that can expand to 24 using tandem breakers.
This is actually sort of common as manufactures try and place them in a spot with the most cooling (the bottom). In theory they could generate double the heat of a single breaker.

Well its the start of my firing season again . I loaded up two glaze kilns yesterday and am firing them today-I have been saying I'm slowing it down and this year it should really be way less than last years firings. Here are the totals for past two years
2022 - 35cubic car kiln downdraft-21 glaze fires 21 bisques
2021- 35 cubic car kiln-26 glaze fires 26 bisques
2022 -12 cubic foot updraft 26 glaze fires -zero bisques
2021 -12 cubic foot updraft 33 glaze fires -zero bisques
2022 -10 cubic foot Skutt electric bisques-2 
2021 -10 cubic foot Skutt electric bisques-11 
I'm working on my usual large spring wholesale order now and stock for local outlets-next art show is in September and thats my only Art show for 2023
My local  two organic markets usually order about every 3 weeks this time of year.
Galleries and gift shops are in the slow season now

You cannot run that kiln on a clothes dryer circuit. There are two issues to deal with when hooking up a kiln, voltage and amperage. The electrical service in homes in the US is 240 volts. In most commercial spaces it is 208 volts. The elements in the kiln are wound to work properly on whichever service you have. You get the correct elements depending on your voltage.
As for amperage, the breaker in your breaker box, and the wire going from the box to the kiln, must be able to handle the amperage draw of the kiln. Smaller kilns pull lower amperage, bigger kilns pull more. Everything from the breaker box to the kiln must be able to handle the amperage draw of the kiln, plus 25% to meet code. A Skutt KS1027 pulls 48 amps, so it has to be on a 60 amp breaker, and have at least 6 gauge wire from the breaker to the kiln. If the previous owner changed out the plug to work on a clothes dryer, then he probably created a dangerous situation because most clothes dryers run on a 30 amp circuit. If he put a 30 amp plug on the kiln and ran it on a 60 amp circuit, then he was lucky it didn't overheat and cause a fire. Did he just change out the plug, or the whole power cord, too?
As for you removing a section of the kiln, yes, it is possible, however you'll have to put different elements in it. You'd be turning it into a KS1018, which uses different elements than the 1027. The 1027 elements would be under-powered since the ratio of wall area to lid/floor area are different The 1018 pulls 40 amps, so it needs to be on a 50 amp breaker.  The biggest kiln that could run on a 30 amp clothes dryer would be a kiln that only pulls 24 amps, which would be much smaller than what you have.