Different Firing Times..

[Hollyfaucheux]

Ok, let me just start with I know next to NOTHING about firing times and temps.. I kinda just started messing around in my bf's grandmothers shop that has been abandoned for over 10 years! She has forgot a lot, but she helps on things she remembers..

 

So anyway.. 2 nights ago I fired a load and her kiln uses the cones.. So I put in cone 6 and normally we have down an hour on low, hour on med, and put it on high and automatically shuts itself off in no longer then 2 hours.. Well that night it was well into hour 3 and still not shutting off! And it was 2am and I was tired and didn't want to leave it running incase it would shut off so I turned it off... I told her and she said she would only leave it on high for an hour and shut it off.. So the next day I opened it and the cone only had a slite bend to it.. That typically are U shape when I open the kiln the next morning... Is this something that I should be concerned about???

[bciskepottery]

You might have a bad element, or a bad thermocouple, or . . . a number of things could have gotten out of whack over the past ten years.

 

Can you provide the type and model of kiln? Does it have a kiln sitter? Or just switches/dials and a timer? How the elements look -- any obvious breaks in the elements? Are they laying on their side? When you turn the kiln on, do they light up? Perhaps a picture of the inside and outside that shows controls.

[neilestrick]

Some kilns will need an hour on high, some will need 6 hours on high. Depends on the kiln. 3 hours doesn't seem unreasonable. Let it run until the cone drops.

[Chilly]

Are you sure you needed a ^6 and not an ^06?