Hyn Patty

One of the reasons you are having difficulty with mold release is due to your print lines. They add a texture that will cause the plaster to grip your 3D printed surface. So any roughness needs to be filled in, sanded out, or smoothed over. It doesn't mean that you can't have the texture but at least coat it with varnish or something to help smooth it out and fill in micro undercuts. All those little places you have plaster sticking inside of the print lines are forming tiny undercuts. The main problem with 3D printing, IMO, is that there is a TON of cleanup. I 3D print resins of my horse sculptures and no matter how clean my prints, how much I fuss over no print lines, temperature and other issues still cause so many nit picky things that I can literally spend hours cleaning up a single print afterwards before it's usable for mold making. By the way, you can also 3D print originals or mold masters in rubber! This is super nice for pouring plaster molds and works a lot better than using the hard plastic. But again, you need super perfect printing because you won't be able to clean up rough areas in rubber as easily as you can with plastic resin. So as the technology is still evolving and not nearly good enough unless you really, really know what you are doing and that's a steep learning curve. I've been 3D printing two years now and there's still a ton I'm trying to fine tune. So mostly I still use the old fashioned methods of pouring rubber and building mold boxes. Pardon me - I see belatedly that others also pointed this out so I'll just agree with them! (edited to add this comment)

Skutt rewiring was delayed a bit due to deadlines to finish other work, holiday decorating, packages to ship, and so much more. BUT I finally finished up all of the rewiring yesterday, with new elements, new relays, new transmitter, everything except the motherboard changed out for new in the controller. Test fired last night to cone 04 to oxidize the new elements and it performed beautifully! I'll work on gutting and rewiring my Olympic sometime after the holidays. Thanks everyone. Good to have my larger kiln back online!

Hahaha! I just got off the phone with Olympic and they do not make wiring harnesses - they just sell the wire for me to build my own! So, looks like I'll order a spool of Radix 200C like I was planning to do anyway. They also told me the rest of my Bartlett controller wiring can be replaced by the foot at Home Depot and they do that all the time themselves for repairs sent in to them. So I'll finish up the Skutt first when the replacement relays and wiring arrives, and then I'll tackle the Olympic after. I should have my new multimeter by then anyway so I can recheck everything. I figured if I can help my husband rebuild an entire wiring harness for the Jeep last year, I think I can probably tackle a kiln... We also did the same for our double ovens and dishwasher recently. It's not like we can get techs to come out to this wilderness area hours from any city.

For now I just bought the Skutt wiring harness so I can get my kiln back up and running. I haven't entirely dismissed getting wire to rebuild the wiring harness in my other kiln since it isn't available as a ready made set. This isn't rocket science guys and I have done some wiring before. As for the rest, I do know about crimping properly. Yep, slip on terminals were all removed, cleaned, and retightened. My son apprenticed as an electrician for quite a while and has all the right tools so that's not an issue, and he's my go to with most questions electrical. Handy that! But he's not worked on kilns before so his help is limited. I do think my multimeter however needs to be replaced (it's old and not giving as accurate readings as I'd like) so further testing of resistance for my personal notes has to wait until I can get another one. I DO appreciate all the feedback. Thank you! I'm a huge fan of learning new things and doing research. I'm also a big fan of not letting something stop me if say a ready made wiring harness kit simply isn't available. It is for my Skutt so I decided to just order that one but apparently what I need to replace on my Olympic is a bit more complex. Olympic can only help me with some of it and I'm not ready to replace my entire Bartlett controller just yet. So we'll see. I'll give it further thought. I have not yet replaced the Radix 200C wiring from the elements to the controller. That is indeed some of the wiring I'll probably do myself later since it's even more super simple than the wiring inside of the controller. The resistance on that wiring seemed very low and I'll recheck it when I have a new multimeter but I think it's still good enough to keep using it for a while yet.

While looking into replacing the wiring - I have also learned that the Skutt kilns were originally set up with 14 gauge wiring to and from the relays. But more recently they have swapped to 12 gauge in order to keep the relays (both black and clears) cooler and lasting longer. So I think that will be helpful, whether I order ready made wiring kits or just get spools of wire and make my own, that I be sure it's the heavier gauge and not the more common & thinner 14 g. Useful info and practice for any appliance rewiring, kilns or otherwise. Can anyone here tell me what kind of wire the thinner red wiring is? Probably they can tell me if I take a sample to my local hardware store.

I can certainly replace wiring and I'm about to that with my Olympic already. The wiring in that one is looking pretty shabby but the wiring in my Skutt still looks clean and new. Testing the wiring in the Skutt with a multimeter also shows very little resistance in the wiring - and we checked every wire in there. Not sure I can replace these with another style of relay or not. My first thought was that this pair was faulty since my last pair of relays, which were the exact same kind, lasted 20 years without issue. Still reading all other comments...

So, while swapping out the elements on my 20 year old Skutt, when I went to test fire it afterwards the kiln firing schedule starts, the relays click, but there's no heat. In fact there is no power at all getting to the elements. After a few minutes into the firing schedule the relays stop clicking and the kiln just sits there displaying the same temperature it started with. No error code. I sent photos to Ryan at Kruger Pottery of various things to make sure I had done my re-wiring precisely and he says it's fine. But he did notice (as I had) that both of my recently replaced relays had bent connection pins in one corner. I replaced those about three months ago but clearly they have already failed in a new, strange way. I'm attaching a photo to show how the two lower left connections sank into the relay body and went crooked instead of staying straight like the other connection pins. I contacted the company that sold me the relays and we chatted about whether or not they'd had any similar failures like this, especially in that batch. But they said no. My old relays failed in the usual manner by burning out internally and the clear plastic went black. But never seen this kind of failure before. They are kindly sending me a replacement pair of relays but I'd love to know what might cause it and certainly do not wish to keep repeating it. After chatting we decided that my 20 year old kiln's Signal Transformer might be failing. There is no discoloration on it, and it tested fine using a multimeter for continuity, but I went ahead and ordered a replacement transformer since it's only about $15 anyway. I double checked my Olympic Doll E and it uses the same kind so I went ahead and ordered a second one for that kiln too, since I fire it a great deal more often than I use my big Skutt. My replacement parts are long overdue so I'm trying to get a leg up and make sure both kilns, and especially my heavily used Olympic, are kept in tip top shape. Anyway, if you have had this kind of failure on relays before, or if your signal transformer in your kiln controller has gone bad, I am just fishing to see if you had similar experiences. The more I know the better! Thank you for your input.

Problem with my K thermocouple is that not ALL of the wire is sheathed. Just the tip where the two are joined it has no covering - so it still drops flakes off of the tip. So yes, I am a huge fan of a good S thermocouple instead so not to risk ruining my work. For whatever reason those are fully sheathed and last so much longer too. So sorry you had to pay SO MUCH for your elements, Babs. I assume a lot of that is freight cost but likely your kiln is much larger than my Skutt which is about medium sized for a kiln. Large compared to my little Olympic but fairly small compared to my Mother-In-Law's huge Skutt that's easily twice the size of mine. Hers probably does utilize twice as much element wire so that would make sense if the cost were at least doubled.

Oops! I should have posted this in 'Equipment Use and Repair' so if a kindly admin would move it for me, I'd appreciate that. I'm looking but I do not see a way to move it myself. Thank you!

A while back I mentioned on my Workshops Facebook group that my large Skutt kiln cost a small fortune in electricity to fire and that a newer kiln wouldn't have that issue. Which turns out to be true - in a simplified way. A long firing using my Skutt after 20 years was taking too long and eating a lot of power. It might run me $50 in electricity to do a single long, slow firing and that's nuts. I had no idea until my husband commented on how much our power bill had jumped up when I started using that kiln again. But for a while I had used this kiln so little until the past year that I forgot how long the firing schedule should have been. While firing a Cybis 'Nashua' I've been working on for a while, one evening my kiln finally threw an error code and aborted the firing. Thankfully my client's Cybis wasn't ruined. It merely didn't fire up to temperature. Either one of my kiln elements had blown or my thermocouple had gone bad. Testing was in order. A simple multimeter (while the power was disconnected) showed me a LOT of resistance in the elements that still worked. I then ordered new elements for my Skutt and they arrived yesterday! Mind you, BOTH of my kilns have been used much of the past 20 YEARS and NEVER had anything replaced on them until last year. My Skutt especially still looks brand new and I try to keep both kilns in top condition, but.... My Olympic suddenly blew a relay last year and that was a wake up call for me! Now this. Needless to say I should have replaced the relays and elements YEARS ago. Expensive as they are I've surely wasted several times the cost in electricity in just the past few years due to having worn out elements and not realizing it. All my firings have continued to go just fine - I just wasn't keeping a log of how long it took for those firings. If I had been I'd have seen that my firing times were getting longer and longer over the years. It did that so slowly I didn't even notice. I barely even use this large Skutt kiln compared to my little Olympic Doll E so why would I have caught that? Now I feel stupid for not catching it sooner. As I am fond of saying, 'No matter how much you think you know about anything, there is ALWAYS more to learn!' Ceramics is definitely no exception to that rule. So guess what I am doing today? Replacing all four elements in my Skutt. I've got this! There's a YouTube video for almost anything out there...

Yes, that was the going rate at that time from ANYWHERE (for my kiln) so yeah, I decided to wait. I always price shop around and look at a lot of different places and at that time everyone's prices were stupid crazy. Some had them cheaper like $350 but then the shipping was insane so I'm glad I waited. I was able to get backup relays at that time for regular price thankfully. As for S thermocouple that may well be true and that is my concern also. Which is why I want to test it but hadn't yet. I may put it into my little Olympic kiln and try it rather than in my larger Skutt. I really detest K thermocouples and how they flake off bits of metal. I am always having to steel brush whatever part of them that isn't fully sheathed and vacuum out my Olympic before any glaze firing - else risk little bits of black flakes in my finished pieces. As I typically get several thousand dollars per piece I just can't have flaws like that in my scupture.

I feel you. My now 20 year old Skutt failed to reach temp on a firing for the first time recently and gave me an error code that suggests either the elements or the thermocouple are failing. Ugh. With the price of rhodium gone through the roof, that could be costly. Tbh I haven't replaced ANYTHING on this kiln, or my Olympic, since I got them new 20 years ago with the exception of the relays - and I have used them a lot. The relays went out on both kilns in the past year so they are brand new. As much as I have used the heck out of my Olympic Doll E, I have no clue how on earth I haven't had to replace anything else in all these years. I've just been amazingly lucky, I suppose. My SKutt however was in storage for about a decade and has been used a great deal less than my little Olympic. Good news is I found a platinum rhodium replacement thermocouple S out of China that only cost $15 shipped (instead of $400) but I haven't tested it yet. It is supposed to be good to fire up to cone 16 and since both of my kilns only fire up to cone 10, that would do very well if it works. I'll be swapping it to test shortly but hadn't gotten around to trying it yet. Alas, testing my elements on my big Skutt showed a lot of resistance and one bad element. No wonder my electric bill has been going higher and higher when using the Skutt. Thankfully a full set of 4 new elements for my KM1018 have come down in price. During COVID I had already priced them and they were about $400 USD with shipping. OUCH. But now I got them for $253 postage paid. Whew! That is a nice surprise.

Good to know! Of course it does depend on what kind of underglaze you are using. I don't have Amaco Velvets though I keep meaning to get some to try. I agree, doing tests - that's always wise before you commit to working on an important piece.

As an animal sculptor myself, your pieces are beautiful. Lovely work! I agree using a bisque mender (I don't bother adding paper fiber myself) will work great and you can carefully tint it with underglaze or clay to match your original clay. If the color after firing is off just a touch and bothers you, you can softly apply a little opaque underglaze to the area to blend it in and re-bisque one last time to hide it. Again matching your colors to your original unglazed piece so it's not visually a problem. I repair bisques of various kinds this way all of the time, even thin broken legs. If you are able to rough up the edges of the break the mend will be stronger than just filling in a smooth crack. If it is at all possible to deal with your thickness issue you should. Even with hand building you can always start with a wadded up bit of paper as your core for pieces that will be too small to get your fingers into to hollow out properly. Dry it slowly and the paper will burn out in the first firing. May even want to make plaster molds of various parts before assembly so you can slip cast replicas that then you can resculpt anew into individual pieces and save you both some time and cracking, but up to you. Good luck with it!