Cones And Soaking Times Theory
Nearly every day on this forum someone, often me, refers to cones and their importance in the ceramic firing process. I understand how cones work. I explain it to my students all the time. But this week I found myself with a question about cones I've never encountered before.
When it comes to soaking (holding temperature) in order to achieve heat work, we always tell people to test it with actual cones. I've heard anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour of soaking is necessary in order to gain on
If you can get the NCECA program for last year you can read a great presentation on the newest research on Heatwork. Basically the future of kiln programming will have to go to Heatwork rather than Cones ... it's their fault for giving us computers to play with!
Anyhow, my fabled firing of this week ... I ramped the computer to hit 2200F, held it for 20 minutes. Results - cone 7 on top, hard 8 in the middle and a regular 8 at the bottom. The controlled cooling did not go all the way, so I lo