Bill Kielb

Nice! Good test. At some point if you are in need I have the test equipment to measure this stuff and have the data of several measured factory functional systems. It’s impressive how little air flows through these things. In the winter this may down draft till you warm it, but no worries, you will figure it out. We are geographically close and you are welcome to use the test equipment and have the typical operating data if you ever have a need.

FYI They do make plastic counterweight dryer duty dampers. I don’t really like them either though. As long as there is no bird screen on the exhaust, your chances of obstruction are minimal and you might be able to sequential stack two 45 degree take offs (on the same vertical axis) to minimize the chance of this. At that point the bottom of the eight inch becomes a clean out. This is common in multi family and community dryer installations. Just a thought for future.

pretty spiffy Since you have two discharges connected to one common pipe, it is possible that with one fan on and the other off exhaust could be pushed through the inoperable blower aided by the air that is already being sucked out of the room. No worries though, normal design for this is a simple backdraft damper in each discharge if this ever becomes an issue. I need to mention though as It may become more significant after you add the 400 cfm room exhaust. Interesting cap btw, looks neat, how do you turn them on and off.?

I like OEM for elements or at least known very high quality elements by others, even when more costly. For proprietary stuff, knobs, handles, etc... probably the manufacture. Grooved bricks, OEM for sure. For products they don’t produce themselves, relays I can buy equal or in many cases superior. For wire and connectors I will often buy superior because it’s available and I have specific knowledge it is common in other industries. For the simplest of things That are costly for the manufacture to build in all their kilns but simple for me to do a single kiln, say a rusty #8 sheet metal screw, it probably just gets replaced with a #10 stainless. So I guess to answer your question, both - always trying to replace with anything reasonably known superior so hopefully I don’t have to revisit it in the near future.

I fix it. Having a very blue collar youth, if ya didn’t fix it, you were likely walking instead of driving your old car. A lack of money is a great motivator to learn how to fix everything and anything. I did learn one important lesson, well two maybe. Ordinary folks can learn most things and produce extraordinary results and my never give up level probably increased exponentially as a result of forced necessity.

Coffee mug, car thermos style or bottle of soft drink. Both seal tight when I am not sipping.

Please post and show us a successful fire! Looks like you are on your way with a touch more work.

This can be offset but make sure you follow a decent design and you likely (at mimimum) will need a spark arrestor to top it off. It looks quite close to the structure. There are other concerns as well, rules that may state the need for it to be a minimum of 10 feet or more from a window that can be opened for ventilation. Try and research all aspects, this might not be the best placement for the kiln

What has been said here is correct. You will need a damper to tune this as you fire and as your temperature rises. The hotter your kiln gets the greater the draft through it. You need to be able to adjust this during firing to regulate how much secondary air you suck in. In general, the taller you make your flue, the greater the suction can be. You should be able to get a better sense of this by temporarily dampening at the top to note if there is a significant improvement, do this for test purposes only. If you confirm the requirement, then install a typical appropriate damper in your design which then will allow the total height to be fine tuned once you are able to fire to temperature.

Nice look! I like all of them, maybe more for matte slightly less for high gloss Any need for warning not to place on direct fire?

Those look great! Several years ago I made lidded jars and it was a good lesson in designing around things so they were aesthetic and functional. Those look great! Any plans for a handle that fully pivots away for storage?

Sounds like that is your new personal standard. You continued to think about it and intentionally improved it. Good for you, credit deserved - selling well or not.

I sure like all these answers but the one question that pops into my head when reading the honey jar story is : did you find the modification worth the effort? If so, then I would say it now is acceptable to your standard. Folks who master a craft often produce fine precise things almost impossible to recreate by machine. Not taking away from handmade, but many things handmade are crazy precise as a function of mad skill and a personal standard of excellence. so In the end, did the built in spoon enhance functionality to your personal satisfaction? I think I like both the randomness as well as skilled intentional precision.

@Magnolia Mud Research In general we do not, much simpler. So if you look at the typical potters oxygen probe you will get an output between zero and let’s say 2 volts. The probes marketed to potters today are generalized by results (Fired work) and the sheer Limit of a typical gas fire kiln utilizing primary and secondary air. In the kiln above, the owner purchased a probe from Geil which can measure from approximately 20.9% to 1E-11 percent oxygen. Very similar to Atmos Engineering probe (for industry). Generally these things use the Nernst equation %O2 = [Ref O2] x e (exp) (mv/(-0.02155xTemp. K) ) the output is generally logarithmic and correlates to partial gas pressures and therefore a related percentage oxygen content. Of that 2 volts, the practical range potters experience are about 0 to 1 volt where 1 volt is near unachievable by ordinary kilns. Our 1 volt output corresponds to let’s say .00001 - .00002% O2 content (temperature dependent) this small amount of oxygen or lack there of, results in a super heavy reducing atmosphere during ordinary reduction firings. so for all the fancy stuff above we need to only report the output (mv) and relate it to a chart that indicates its relative strength of reduction to a Potter with a gas kiln. Which generally simplifies to 0.7 v is heavy reduction, 0.5v is medium and so on. So to answer your question, it’s really not converted to anything thermodynamically. Potters now know heavy reduction is X -volts, medium -Y, and neutral-Z so to speak Take a look at the various charts below and it should make more sense with ultimately the simplest form you see there being a very popular potters form.. The plot is actually a spreadsheet we give them, formatted so they can easily creat their own reduction profiles to follow and can easily install in the program for on screen display during their firing. Notice the R1.....R4 . So the goal here is to allow them to be programmers without having to do any meaningful programming. The X axis is time but dependent on their firing speed. The demarcation temps are the O2 levels they have picked for their reduction schedule. Most simple schedules translate to: body reduction (heavy) from 1600 - 1700 degrees and some lesser reduction the balance of the way. Most ordinary pottery kilns are powered and insulated such that at cone 10 they are lucky to maintain 100 degrees per hour in medium reduction anyway so this really ends up to limit their choice of reduction schedules toward the end of the firing. But having said all that, they can vary their schedule, formulate and glaze and repeat once they discover the magic combination. The PLC and touch screen allows them to store up to four of their favorites easily, and does a whole bunch more as you can set alarm points, see your firing rate, get texts, monitor remotely on your phone or tablet, display on a TV as a lecture aid, record the entire firing and data etc..... So far we just help private entities build these and license the software to them for nothing other than a commitment to give back to the community and promote any knowledge gained. It cannot be used commercially or resold commercially but is intended as a tool to help educate as well as develop new schedules, firings and glazes to be shared with the larger community. None of these are automatic in anyway, they are simply monitors allowing the user to learn how to fire more readily. You would be amazed at the answers I get when I have to ask how fast do you want to fire? so far so good actually. Anywhere that has had one the learning curve has accelerated greatly .

So I spent the last Month off and on to: Congratulations Dawn & Ray! We Just finished the fourth Kiln monitor, interfacing with their Geil car kiln, and made further improvements to the programming to help folks reduction fire more easily, repeatable, and hopefully share their results with everyone in the pottery community. First reduction test run was designed to calibrate and hopefully allow schedules to be created that are effective and finish in about eight hours. From an initial peek inside the kiln, All test tiles reduced everywhere as expected ……… they are on their way to creating cool stuff and sharing their results and new schedules / techniques. Next build I think we are gonna find a cool dressy enclosure though. Generation Four- Finished! Pictures of some of the peek inside the kiln and other stuff below

@Bloomfield Pottery Yes, That is quite high time wise. Have you downloaded the manual above and set your switches appropriately? If yes, then you may need to check your elements. Elements wear and as they wear firings will take longer as their resistance increases their output decreases. Elements that wear or increase in resistance by 10% generally should be replaced as they usually have difficulty achieving high fire temperatures. This is especially true for cone 8 kilns more so than cone ten kiln firing at cone 6 as they simply have less power available. your kiln. Is 240v, 24 amps so new, the combined resistance of all your elements will be 10 ohms. Once this combined resistance goes up by 10% or to 11 ohms its likely time to change them as making cone six with full power applied begins to take super long or cannot be achieved.. A normal fast glaze often takes about six hours and a slow glaze say 7 to 9 hours but this can vary from kiln to kiln.

Isn’t that what the S stands for?

In my opinion The adapter success is not likely. The wiring needs to be rated at least 50 amps as well as the breaker and all connecting wiring. Best to let a qualified person review this and make everything safe and per code for your new kiln. The adapter is a no go in my opinion.

No, works for me. Easy Peasy! Also have an engineered recirculating chamber that evens things out in minutes to hours but plastic just fine here. That recirculating thing is really nice but a pain compared to the plastic. Jennifer McCurdy showed me a nice quick way to manage drying with plastic. She would gather it evenly and drop it into the top of her vessel then drape it over evenly on all sides and voila! Learn how to manage your drying speed she said to me.

I am sympathetic towards her point of view but too vitriolic for me. Often for those that truly know something they become offended at those that do not. Maybe mandatory minimum IQ is the solution. There are a bunch of reasons to hate and far fewer to like especially in a hyper charged creative environment. In twenty years of teaching I noticed three distinct personalities. One was that of making money (Ho hum) one was that of superiority and being all knowing (Ok I guess) and one was that of teaching and enjoying the natural expansion and progression of students knowledge beyond your own. Not scientific but the first two types were often negative and hated something daily. The third seemed happy to learn, happy for others new knowledge and generally happy to see humanity progress. I sympathize with her point, but only see it as an opportunity for her to educate others. I am half Polish half Italian, maybe I should tell her how incorrect many folks are about my heritage. Just sayin, I think I prefer to meet, greet and as Liam says sit back and enjoy while I can. My wife and I Met a group of strangers from Cameroon two days ago. They spoke little English, no French and no Polish ..........Great Fun, interesting culture, memorable thirty minutes of my day, learned a bunch and took lots of pictures all smiles and well wishes! the experience - free for all, monetarily profiting from the experience ........... not in my wheelhouse.

Nice - all outside photo booth now? Organic through and through

Never ordered from AliExpress, any feedback?

Looks good but I would remove the reflection as well and see if you like it

I like them. Audio is nicer also and of course no PJ’s a plus. Kudos to mentioning the compression out to in. You are probably only the third person I know to mention it and it has saved countless newbies from the unexplained crack. Food preparation is a bit of science also. This video has made me hungry, go figure. someone I watched who was a throw to the stick person actually hinged the last two inches of his stick so when done he could flip it horizontally out of the way. Seemed like an easy good idea.

Nice work! I never post anything here so here is a sampling of the weekend reduction firing. There are many talented artists at the studio (Clayspace ceramic arts center) that now excel at getting their favorite reduction, Carbon trapping, even ice crackle! cool stuff and a fun mask almost sans eyeballs. Great group firings, time after time in an old Alpine updraft with some fancy digital stuff hooked to it.