Ceramic Buttons Necessary For Fiber Kiln?

[Mark C.]

These fiber kilns go up fast and cool fast as they do not have thermo mass.

If this is for raku it fine but say cone 6 glazes well the slow cool would help them and the fast cool will not.

Mark

[cabako]

Ok finally did the first bisque fire.  Aiming for cone 04 using just pyrometer, I'm broke at the moment no $$ for cones! Overall took about 8 hrs turned off at 1976F after 10 min soak.  Ramped pretty fast so went a bit further. Here are pics of the bowl of buttons and stamps and some kiln shelves.  

With this fiber kiln it was really interesting to see the play between gas pressure, flow rate, kiln ventilation, burner placement and the minute adjustments necessary to get a steady ramp Vs burst of temp increase or decrease.  Also cool to see how easy to get oxidation vs reduction atmosphere.

 

The items all had a nice ring to them, but now I am wondering, is there any kind of porosity test that can differentiate between cone 06 and 04 etc?  I am guess not...thats why we use cones in the first place...

 

Hopefully next I will attempt a test glaze fire with some recycled filter aid/custer feldspar like material.

[Magnolia Mud Research]

Well done!

 

LT

[cabako]

ok buttons on & kiln bootstrapped! 

 

I guess if I had to do it again I would make the button connections taper down thinner so they would penetrate the wool a bit.  Also I was thinking about why not wire long strips of clay or plates to the wool to give it some mass maybe it would help it cool slower.  Not sure its worth the effort or feasible,

 

Thanks for all your help!