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Just wondering if anyone has encountered this issue. I have well tempered core-lite kiln shelves (26" rounds) I use at the base of my kilns. Just recently we started do fast low fire firings to set underglaze. The last two fires we lost the bottom shelf (bottom shelf only). I'm attaching photos. We've been using the same pack pattern for more than 2 years including a 3 post lift to the next shelf without issue. None of the other kilns have manifested the issue, but this is the only one we've been running fast fires to ^05. I'm thinking the speed of the fire has something to do with it, but that's only a theory. We have run fast fires to the same ^05 on the same program in our 18" kiln with 18" full rounds without incident. We've been doing this for more than 2 years. The first time it happened (yesterday), the shelf was older, about 3 years old. I would say approximately 200+ firings on it. My first suspicion was that some sort of fatigue had occurred. So, I replaced it with a kiln that was less than 6 months old and had less than 50 firings on it. On the very first firing the exact same fracture occurred. No shelves above the bottom shelf fractured or cracked. All had the same post layout, and all posts were directly above one another. The first time it happened there were only 2 full shelves above the bottom shelf plus one lightly loaded (3rd shelf). The second time it happened there was one single fully loaded shelf above bottom shelf. The types of pots, loads, and weights per shelve were identical in the two firings. After the first shelf fractured I added four (1) 1.5" x 1.0" posts around the center of the bottom shelf for additional support. If there are any clarifying questions I can respond here, thoughts and suggestions are welcome... Mike

Hi all, I have recently purchased a Podmore wheel to find that the whole electrics system needs repairing! not ideal Everything else in the wheel seems in good condition and would be a shame to write the wheel off! My uncle fixes motorbikes and deals with electrics so had a look at it and got it working but then it stopped again. we figure that someone previously has done some soldering work on it and basically it needs a replacement electric system. I rang Potterycrafts who took over Podmore in 1982 and asked if it could be refurbished or if they sell the parts and they said I would need to find an electrician who wanted to fix it for me and the modern wheels are so different electrically wise that we cant even combine the two. The wheel is currently in swindon, Wiltshire. Any ideas of how to get it fixed or who to ask? i really dont want to scrap it