Bill Kielb

Can they have an unglazed bottom or foot ring to allow for display? If not, how about casting a sacrificial ring or tab (maybe 3/16” diameter eyelet) into the bottom, suspend while firing, grind off after finished and finish the remaining dot with paint, or a bigger dot and insert logo?  
Just thinking …….

Hi Bill, your responses really helped me understand more about how things work! Super helpful.
Snickerhaus - I built a pottery shed in my back yard a few years ago, and had an electrician install a 80 Amp 240 V circuit that ran from my main electrical panel on my house.
While heavy gauge wire is expensive, the materials cost (wire, conduit, breakers) was less than the LABOR cost from the electrician to install everything. The lesson I learned was to plan for the most amperage/voltage I could imagine ever needing, and have the electrician install the needed wire and breakers. It cost a little more up front, but again the main cost for everything was the labor itself. Now I can move to a larger kiln in the future without worrying about doing another round of expensive electrical upgrades.
Hope that perspective is helpful.

Thank you!!
As an update:
- I replaced the breaker with a standard non-GFI breaker and all is working fine (the original GFI breaker was for my home brewing setup)
- also, thanks on the info on venting, my wife sincerely appreciates the guides!  She had been using the kiln without the benefit of any manuals in the past.
- Fascinating info on  firebrick conductivity, @neilestrick
We got things working and did our first firing last night.

@SolidCitizen Vented used to mean propped, perhaps with a peep hole or two out. Some kilns came with a small L shaped prop build into the lid, for others folks would prop the lid and inch or so with kiln furniture to vent. Usually in the first portion of the firing to let out any minor amount of water (steam) being released.
If this is on a 2 pole GFCI breaker and the breaker trips then there is leakage at that level. (About .005 amps directly to ground) some GFCI breakers are sensitive and will nuisance trip so changing to a new 2 pole GFCI may work. If this run is out to a garage, the quality of the wire, connections etc… can contribute to the sensitivity. Any junction that is wet or moist can cause minor leakage.
In my view,  if it is tripping then there is leakage so solving that issue can be difficult. Lots of folks don’t run kilns on GFCI’s, just items within reach of water sources ….. sinks mostly. A well grounded kiln is important though so ensuring a good ground all the way back to the panel AND to a grounding source such as water main and driven ground rod is a must to protect from shock.
Here is a link to the old generic Paragon manual https://paragonweb.com/wp-content/uploads/IM104-Paragon-Ceramic-Kilns-April20181.pdf venting is explained among other things.
4 way rotary switch operation explained here https://eadn-wc04-7751283.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/IM-55-Current-Flow-thru-4-way-Switch.pdf
A&B service manual https://eadn-wc04-7751283.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/IM5-A-and-B-Paragon-Inst-Man-Jan2017.pdf
Your kiln by manufacture requires a 30 amp breaker, btw page 6 guide above.
Finally the pilot is likely 240 volt rated neon light. Double check the voltage stamped on the side and replace with proper voltage rated lamp.

Today I spoke to Jim from Evenheat, who offered to install a solid state relay free of charge. I'm mailing the control box back to him. I hope this is the solution! Thank you, everyone, for your extremely valuable input, I truly appreciate it!

OK, I tried that, nothing happened. I think we've rule almost everything out, except the TAP and some internal wires we can't see. It started after I incorrectly calibrated the screen. I looked how to recalibrate it, which also didn't work.
I'm going to call SDS tomorrow and see what they say. I can't believe it's the relays, 3 of which are brand new...

Yep, turns the relays on and off. Everything gets wired as full power and rhe elements just sequence on and off as needed to climb on schedule.

I used these from Euclids when I rewired my electric -brass and stainless -I added some copper coat as well to insure great long term corrosion free connection 
https://euclids.com/products/element-connector-large-2-screw?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=82bd0e954&pr_rec_pid=5133891010605&pr_ref_pid=5133812236333&pr_seq=uniform

Only time I have seen unique circular and spiral failures were from the trimming and burnishing at the green stage, which in those cases very excessive. Was hoping your picture would reveal the actual crack / blowout.  Sorry, that’s all I have at the moment. Anything special to add about the throwing trimming process?
 
“Pictures definitely key here as I have seen circular failures and delaminating especially in bowls where the interiors were overworked in the green stage. Pictures and a little about any special throwing, trimming, ribbing, burnishing etc….  could help narrow this down.”

This may help - I like those as well but their mass is small so I personally have seen them fail on the highest loaded elements in the least cooled ares. They are not big enough or have enough surface area to keep the connection cool for the amount of cooling  air passing them.
Improving the cooling airflow can help if the convective flow from bottom to top can be improved. Reducing leaks out of the kiln by stuffing with high temp insulation can help for radiant and convective losses as well.
The simplest solution has been to extend the element pigtail more and position for best convective cooling, just to get some additional cooling to the connection.
conductivity plays a role so copper best, brass next,  followed by steel / stainless.  An old easy connector to build  is drill a brass bolt, use the bolt and two washers. Sandwich the wires between the washers through the drilled hole. Increased  convective cooling (heat sink)  easy to achieve this way, thermal conductivity less of an issue but surface area as well as mass very important. So this can be done with steel and stainless, just harder to fabricate and not thermally as conductive.
1/4” - 3/8” X an inch or two (Cooling surface area and mass) simple brass bolt and nut depending on the clearance in your cabinet can last forever and be very economical and easy to build.

GFCI outlets are not recommended for use with kilns. See HERE. 

Aha ! Better pictures. So it has terminal extensions. If it’s just not working then check the fuse between PIN number 11 of the power switch and pin 4 of the relay. Also check the lid switch if you have one, this kiln will not start without the lid down. There should be an adjustable lid switch that connects when the lid is closed. It may have bent or be slightly out of adjustment.
And not to forget to mention, ( not likely but….) the new crimp has to be crimped around bare wire, not just the outer plastic of the wire. A nice tight connection that cannot be pulled out of the connector.

@THW Aha! It's not an 8 tab, it's a 6 tab with a double connector. Okay, so that all good then. We just couldn't tell from the photo. In that case double check all the crimps and see if that helps. A bad crimp could definitely cause the relay to overheat and fail.

I think your diagram here https://www.evenheat-kiln.com/_files/ugd/3a9418_3f21adacb8c84a608e3481349c72110a.pdf. Looks like all crimps have been replaced at one time or another. What I don’t understand is the extra connections to the normally olosed set of contacts on the relay. This is not shown on the diagram, can you describe or show where all these lead?
On most relays the normally open contacts will be rated for high amperage - 20-25 amps something like that. The normally closed usually will be a fraction of that, say 2-3 amps. Most kilns don’t use them yet your kiln has wires to them. Interesting. My best guess is someone got the double pole double throw relay and crimped extra connectors on instead of combining the wires as shown in first drawing.
In the drawing below a red and black are combined on  terminal #4 and a red and white are combined on terminal #8. The way this is currently wired is likely a dead short or running full element current through very low rated contacts as soon as the power is turned on. You can use a relay like that, but two of the connections need remain  unused. The normally closed set remain unused. Just looking, the top two relay connections are not colored as published either and the missing green is part of the lid safety circuit.. Tracing all these out and matching them to the diagram is probably wise before firing it again.

Unstretched, de-stretched, aligned, reprogrammed, I like all of them!
I like this also:
"The compression is not to dewater or make the clay more dense. It is to alter the residual stress state of the clay. To reprogram its memory, so to speak."
- Gavin Stairs (on potters.org)
Richard Burkett's shrinkage test, same thread, demonstrates the (dramatic) difference "compression" makes - overall shrinkage 15% for stretched slab, 11% for compressed slab, 12% for "normal" slab - big difference.
If pushing on the clay - against the wheel head as it revolves, but not so much that the thickness is substantially changed* - alters the density by squeezing out water, I should be able to easily squeeze water out of clay?
How? I haven't any luck with that, but I haven't tried applying progressive test to discover the force required to squeeze water from clays quickly, as in the amount of time one spends compressing the base of a wheel thrown ware...
 
*where a ridge of clay moved one way is then reversed.

It definitely will reduces in volume and dewater as well as force fines into open areas, just happens to be tiny. Maybe “not stretched” is a better thought but that does not address the mistake we see when folks push down so hard the clay begins to squirt out an unconstrained edge. I think I attempted to confirm this with a home made penetrometer btw - not a pretty sight though. 

Thanks Bill, thanks Jeff.
I interpreted overwork as forcing the clay enough past its limit of elasticity, which I'd called shear or partial shear.
For Bill, excessive trimming/burnishing.
For Jeff, extended throwing time, where many passes, wet the whole time, leads to over-wet issues.
From my pov, each a legit concern!
In my experience, some clays tolerate more wet time than others. I do like to rib away the slip on the outside of forms, and sponge away most of the slip/wet from the insides as well. "Wetting" the clay from the outside is arrested soon as the second pass with the metal rib is complete, which is part of my process now - when wetting ceases, drying begins! A form that may not be prime for flaring out - too wet - can be ready not long after said ribbing.
Clay responds to pressure, pressure and movement, imo.
Where the clay is damp enough to move, trimming and ribbing/burnishing does move the clay, agreed.
The clay moves, round and around. Burnishing definitely involves movement; smearing might be a good word, but it doesn't sound particularly good.
Where the smear begins to separate later on, ah!
I don't see where clay volume is reduced by applying pressure, nor where moisture can be squeezed out by applying pressure to clay on the wheel (in a clay filter press, well, that's different, eh?), so the term "compression" I still don't like, but am mostly over it, heh. 

my reference was for greenware.
In my experience I have seen interesting/ unique  spiral cracks occur where excess working / burnishing has taken place. My recollection is it was someone who wanted the perfect bowl interior and so would trim and heavily burnish the inside of the greenware. It looked great but the difference in density plus the propensity to cause -for lack of better words - local de-lamination made for some interesting circular or spiral failures upon firing. Saw this same failure at the bottom of several cups - same technique, almost too much  trimming and aggressive burnishing to make it look super smooth. When fired and failed the failures appeared to be spiral or follow the circular path of the work that had been done pictures here might help a lot though.
As far as density, compression …… I find clay most logical if I treat it like other material properties we accept. Compression is a real thing, real compression though. Clay memory to me is not a mysterious thing. If Crease a piece of paper, one side is stretched and the other compressed. If I stretch one side of something while throwing I have to work really hard to get everything back to the same uniform density and thickness otherwise it will return in the fired ware. Not really memory to me.

Thank you Bill!
Betty

Phew! Cheers Bill, put my over active mind at rest. 
"Generally clay fluxed reactions take place in the last 100c, last 200c should be pretty safe."
 
Thats great info to have. Thanks. 
 

Speaking of sustainability
I have felt bad about my part in global warming for decades using so much fossil fuel (natural gas) as a full time potter.
For me as a Potter I try to offset this in other areas and we all can do some part as each of us has a part to play in this whether it’s simple recycling or an electric car or other small part.
Everything counts.
For me personally I have had a solar water preheater (copper solar water heater panels, two 4x8 panels on roof) feeding into my water heater since Jimmy Carter funded an incentive in 1980 and help me pay for them. They are still up and working today after43 years. I have moved them once and had to keep them serviced and replaced the 80-gallon solar tank once but it’s an active system.
My wife and I personally installed ourselves a 9.6 KW  ground mount solar electric panels in early 2020 as well as a 22.5 KW lithium backup battery system. Yes, I helped raise the price of raw lithium. We did 100% of all the install.
We use a very small amount of grid power and make the rest ourselves from the sun.
Do whatever you can as it all adds up.

I think the wiring is correct, correct gauge, also conduit and 100 amp circuit, all of it has been checked by Skutt techs, and the wiring from the box is how it comes from Skutt.  It has worked fine for a decade like this as well and there is another 1231 next to it with no problems. Also, no heat on the wire or circuit during firing.
The 3rd test is firing right now and is on target. The second test came out perfect like the first. It seems like it may be fixed, but still pretty mysterious as the thermocouples had already been changed and checked several times. But the goal is a functioning kiln, so I'll be happy with that. I'm bringing the replaced thermocouples and wires to Perry to have checked at Skutt. It will truly be baffling if they find nothing wrong with them. I'll just be happy to be able to fire work in the kiln rather than simulated loads and tests.  It's been an expensive and time consuming 18 months for both me and Skutt. Thanks for thinking through this with me.

They work well. I have just a bit of over 40 years experience with lots of machinery, big small, inductive, resistive likely miles and miles of high, medium and low voltage wiring. I never teach or allow replacement of unit assemblies  without testing to confirm why it is failing.

Just trying to understand in this situation how to diagnose and I think the answer is there is none, the wiring wears out - just install new if your relays aren’t lasting.  
The IR stuff is supposed to help be somewhat predictive and fairly non invasive in lieu of measurements with a meter. Regular measurement techniques work on other stuff for these (kilns) - I don’t know there is a clear answer. Lots and lots of very old wiring, kilns and machinery, that are still working as designed. 
My guess, it is a real thing with some Skutt equipment and maybe just adds enough heat to the cabinet to cause issues. In other words the wire is known to wear out.
If they simply wear out, the IR solution likely would be the same as for motors. Measurement of temperature above ambient or the trend of measurements above ambient over time could provide reasonable confidence in prediction.
Interesting to note in the picture above, the loose connection is adding heat to the wiring, noticeable on both sides of the relay. The fix here is new connector or tighten the connection -all the heat goes away. This is a very common failure. Her picture shows melting within the relay but very good looking connections, not even discolored, pointing to a relay contact issue or overloaded contacts for reasons unknown.

For me I would initially be interested in the following:
a context picture of your control board showing the connections to it , maybe from about two to three feet away so we can see the connections and the wires leading away a context picture of the element connections showing them and the wire that leads to the relays post the element resistance if you can measure them, if not can someone measure them for you so you can post here? So top elements measured resistance =______ ohms, middle section measured resistance = ____ ohms, bottom section measured resistance = ______ ohms. post a picture of the thermocouple itself and the wires leading to where it connects and tell us why you believe it is a type S If you hit the little  + quote  below this message and post the items named above it will be a  direct response to this message

I think there are lots of different reasons people go to pottery classes.
Today they use heat guns, I remember, time constraints and pots thrown onevweek could not be turned the next week so tgey were put infront of the kiln blasting away in the corner of an unvented studio, soun on the wheel infront of a 2 bar strip heater, put on top of the hot kiln SO that everyone finished the course with sthing to take home.
From there a couple a year would pursue ceramics seriously, go down the road of apprentice or whatever and adopt a system which best suits their needs.
Judging others easy to do, that's all.
I'll just away down the street and buy a coffee in my ceramic keep cup and feel religious.