HenryBurlingame

I was thinking about getting some advancer shelves and was wondering if you all prefer full shelves or half shelves for your electric kilns? Say for a typical size like 23"x27" or something like that. I was thinking about doing a full shelf for the bottom and then all half shelves, but then lining up posts would be a little trickier (I could put 6 posts under the bottom full shelf I guess) and I couldn't do very many platters since I don't want to span the two half shelves. But all full shelves really doesn't seem too flexible...

Well you all are making me lean towards the brent cxc (although neil still has me thinking about skutt ;-) ). Especially considering new skutt wheels are out of stock and have an unknown ETA due to manufacturing issues apparently. I will talk to skutt next week, but one vendor said they would be able to do a 1/2hp or 1hp wheel by april 2025. No thanks lol.

One other thing that I am wondering about skutt vs brent: skutt says on their website they don't use IR comp (i.e. it doesn't attempt to keep the wheel speed consistent when you apply resistance). Brent wheels do do this. Anyone have a preference one way or the other (or even notice this)?

Do you know if the larger motors are more noisy than the smaller ones? I was thinking of just getting the skutt classic with the 1/2hp or 1hp motor just in case since I don't see any drawback aside from possibly greater noise...

Oops, double post.

Ah, I didn’t know there were options for motor size with the new skutts. I can’t seem to find an option to customize on the websites I have been looking at, but I’ll look into it!

Well I ended up emailing Rob Battey as suggested. Think I’m going to end up with the L&L e23T-3 with quad elements and vent sure system. Thanks again all!

Thanks again everyone, I ended up going electric for now!

Does anyone have experience with the new red Skutt wheels? I am in the market for a new wheel and was thinking about getting one of the new Skutt classics. It is between that and a Brent CXC… The Skutt being only 1/3 hp gives me a little pause, but supposedly the torque is really good…

Thanks Peter for the links! I actually have been thinking about exploring slow cooling as well as putting things in saggars to get reduction effects. I am sure I can figure out ways to get glazes I like in an electric kiln… just won’t be quite as straight forward as doing it in a gas kiln…

Well I got a quote for running more electric out to the studio for an electric kiln as well as a quote for a concrete pad, constructing a simple kiln shed, and having a large propane tank installed for the gas kiln... Starting to lean toward electric now holy cow

Thanks so much for your help everyone, I really appreciate it! After thinking long and hard about what you have said and after reading through all my glaze books I think I just need to go gas, I can’t help myself. My plan is to read through Olsen’s kiln book, decide on a design, order the firebrick and other necessary materials, and build the kiln while I get the rest of the studio ready (and it looks like I might have to learn how to weld too…). If there are any extra funds left over after is all is said and done I will probably get an electric too for bisque firing. But I see that even the smaller prebuilt gas kilns are around $20k now, wow, hope I can build my own for less than that…. Now I just have to decide on the size lol!

Thanks guys, I was thinking about crystalline glazes and tenmoku oil spot glazes for needing to go above cone 6. But I am not sure how much of that I would be doing. I want to keep the kiln on a 60amp breaker which is why I don’t just go for the JD230-JH. The smaller e23 crystalline kiln is enticing, but if I end up in the future just using the electric kiln for bisque firing and doing most of my glazes in a gas kiln I would regret getting anything significantly smaller than 7cuft electric I think. Oh and I wasn’t planning to buy a bundle, just found some convenient links to the different kilns so everyone would know what I was thinking about... I will definitely give Rob a call if I decide on the L&L.

Does anyone have a preference for one or the other of these brands of electric kilns? I was looking for an ~7cuft electric kiln and the two that caught my interest the most were the L&L e23T-3 (https://www.sheffield-pottery.com/L-L-E23T-3-Easy-Fire-Kiln-Special-Package-p/lke23t3-cm.htm) and the Cone Art 2327D (https://www.sheffield-pottery.com/Cone-Art-GX2327D-Kiln-Package-p/tucgx2327dp.htm). Very similar but with slightly different features. Was wondering what you all thought would be the best choice between these two. One other intriguing option is the L&L E23-JH. With the vent system added the price is similar to the above two. It would let me do cone 10 firings but has a smaller cuft: https://www.sheffield-pottery.com/L-L-CONE-12-KILN-E23S-JH-for-Crystalline-Glaze-p/lke23sjh.htm

That might be a good idea Denice. Get an electric in my studio and work with that while the gas kiln is set up in a year or two. Even buying a gas kiln has very long lead times. I would have to find some glazes I would be interested in that I could do at cone 6ish, maybe some temmoku oil spot... which I think could be done at cone 7 or 8 which I imagine is ok to do in a cone 10 electric kiln... Do you all think it would it be a better idea to buy or build my first gas kiln? Thanks again!