Olympic 2831G gas kiln to cone 6?

[davidh4976]

We just inherited an Olympic 2831G gas kiln. We are thinking about using it to fire to cone 6 reduction.  Anyone have any idea how long a typical cone 6 reduction firing would take?

[Bill Kielb]

Looks like a small well powered kiln. Depending on reduction schedule and firing speed restrictions of the wares you will fire likely 8 - 10 hours. If your wares are not particularly thick and you can go 400 - 600 degrees per hour with let’s say a 45 minute early reduction maybe gets you a bit faster down to 6 hours. This kiln looks like it can go to cone 10. One thing about small updraft kilns folks are prone to stalling them in very heavy reduction. The supervision of damper and gas is often something to get used to and too heavy a reduction will drop your speed a bunch. In my experience most folks tend to stall these kilns on their way to cone 10 so cone 6 reduction should be easier to hit.