Jeanetta Posted May 26, 2021 Report Share Posted May 26, 2021 Hi! I’m shopping to buy a new kiln and my options are Skutt , Euclid, or Cone art I don’t know much about kilns (& nothing about brands) so am hoping to get some opinions on what to go for. I’m intending to fire with relatively high production (a couple bisque and a couple cone 6 firings/month). thanks so much for any feedback!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Kielb Posted May 26, 2021 Report Share Posted May 26, 2021 I hesitate to pick one over the other They are all similar kilns and have produced kilns for many years. I would compare like sizes, features for the money and if possible energy consumption. You likely will find brand loyalty for all three but they all make decent kilns so I am not advocating one over the other. Their internal parts are very similar with respect to relays, controllers, firebrick and elements so the differentiators in my mind are cost for the added features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeanetta Posted May 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted May 26, 2021 Fabulous. Thank you Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted May 26, 2021 Report Share Posted May 26, 2021 You'll likely be happy with any one of those. Hopefully a couple of our Canadian members will chime in . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Min Posted May 26, 2021 Report Share Posted May 26, 2021 I've got a ConeArt and a Euclids kiln, had Skutt in the past. My Euclids one is really old, single piece body not the segmented ones available now. I'ld check how many thermocouples are in the size you are looking for. The 7 cubic foot one from ConeArt comes with 3, my older Euclids of the same size came with one which we added a second one to. We also added thermocouple protection tubes to both kilns. One other point about ConeArt 7 cubic foot size, there is a gap in the middle section of the kiln where there are no elements. This is fine if you don't need to have shelves close together but if you are firing tiles or very shallow pots I could see this being an issue. Don't know if this is the same for other sizes. One other point about the Euclids is we needed to step the control box further away from the kiln body to keep things cooler, again this might be different with the newer kilns. edit: one other thing, I would go and look at the actual kilns, don't go just by specs and images. When I compared the bricks of Skutt and ConeArt it was one of the main reasons I went with the latter for the last kiln I bought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Kielb Posted May 27, 2021 Report Share Posted May 27, 2021 I will volunteer this, Coneart has in my opinion the best or one of the best lid lifter systems out there. Old Frank patented it I believe which would explain why I haven’t seen any other over the years. It appears it was a smart move. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie Piro Posted May 27, 2021 Report Share Posted May 27, 2021 I can't speak to the other two brands you mentioned, but I've used Skutt the most. Both at home as a potter and at school as a ceramics teacher. They are work horses, easy to use, and their customer service is top notch. I've used Amaco as well, and had great successes. I've also heard excellent things about L&L but haven't used them personally. Best of luck on your search! How exciting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callie Beller Diesel Posted May 28, 2021 Report Share Posted May 28, 2021 So you can find support for all those brands easily, and they all come highly recommended. So at that point, price is a factor, and how fast you can get your hands on it. I was informed by Mike at Ceramics Canada that right now, Cone Art has a better lead time by several months than Skutt does if the supplier you buy from doesn’t have what you want in stock. With all our lockdowns, there’s been a big run on ceramic equipment of all kinds as people can’t access their usual studio situations. Also, between sheet metal tariffs and exchange rate, it’ll save you a few pennies to not import anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeanetta Posted May 30, 2021 Author Report Share Posted May 30, 2021 Thank you so much everyone for the thoughtful replies (my wonderings written here in my overwhelm get so soothed by this generous online community!) To share that in the end I too discovered what you said Callie: was told there’s a 16 week wait for cone art kilns from Tuckers. PSH Euclid kilns I believe said 6 weeks. And since I’m feeling impatient in the end I went with Sial in Quebec who had a Skutt 1027 available & could ship right away (though they too said kilns are going like hotcakes). Your tips helped me feel confident that this will be a solid choice. Im glad to hear skutt offers good phone support as I’ll need it if anything doesn’t go smoothly. And am super excited to have my first new kiln!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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