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grayfree, on 03 January 2012 - 09:12 AM, said:
Well here are the pics......it was a small load thank goodness!!!
Whoa. .. . let me get your time frame straight, and some of the particulars of this firing. 1) does you kiln use a kiln setter, that you put a cone 6 cone in? 2) you turned the kiln off at 10:30 (am?)and opened it at 12:30(pm?). You used a runny glaze on the top edge of the pot, and other cone 6 glazes on the rest.
My comments:
On 1-when looking at the kiln setter-what is the appearance of the cone 6 cone? Is it bent, or melted to the brackets etc? 2) Opening a kiln with only 2 hrs of cool down time is detrimental not only to your ware, but the kiln itself. At the same time, because you have an L&L you may damage the element holders by opening the kiln too quickly. 3) If the setter kiln was not melted then you had a nearly normal firing. Your glazes look a little overfired, but then that may be the colors. I did notice some blistering on the outside of the batter bowl that usually indicates some form of firing problem. These could be form unpopped gas pockets from the clay body due to the over fire.
We all have been here. Back in the 90's When running consecutive firings, I overslept. leaving a kiln on high for 6 hrs. longer than than required. The pots all came out dark brown and bloated. None of them stuck to the shelf, none slumped so much as to touch others. My glazing and preliminary cleanup of shelves and pot bottoms ensured that even though I was over exhausted and lost a load, I didn't lose a kiln. Big lesson! I fire without a kiln setter, in an L&L. Everything I do with the kiln is manual. In my younger days that was OK, but now that digital control is out there and works well, I long to upgrade to that set up. Even then, I will be like a mother hen over a kiln, but will have a back up incase I oversleep.
For those of you that don't work in a HS environment: I also fired kilns for years in HS with a kiln setter. I know the standard admonishment that the kilns have to be watched all through the process-however, sometimes that is not possible. I would often start a firing on low the night before, water smoking the kiln til morning, put down the lid, 2 hrs later start turning the kiln up. Usually the bisque was not done when school was over at 3pm. Usually at 4pm it would still be firing, and would shut down between 4-5. This sort of thing was usually after the elements were in for a year or two. A glaze would start in the morning and not end until 6 at night, if I got it loaded the night before. If not, sometimes it did not shut off until 10 or 11 at night. Most time I was at school when the kiln shut off, but often it was too late for me to stay. As I did sets for the drama club, many nights I did not leave school until 10pm. Get up the next morning and do it all over again.
The last year I worked one month before retiring the dr. diagnosed me with T2 diabetes. No family history, not overweight, no other risk factors- Dr. believes I wore myself out! Now retired, no meds, diet and exercise only, BG numbers are normal-for now. So be careful folks!
MultiQuote
As a newbie myself, I feel I should relate a kind of funny kiln story. I have a used electric kiln (Paragon octagonal) that has a kiln sitter that has worked just fine. I'd toyed with the idea of getting a pyrometer because it was old, but hadn't. It fired just fine at cone 6 and seemed pretty reliable. I'd tracked the time it took for the kiln sitter to flip and it had been about 6 hours. In warm weather. For my latest firing I woke up in the middle of the night 8 hours after starting the firing (sorry, but it was the middle of the night) and it was still going. I panicked and stopped the firing, fearing that everything had been overfired. It turns out that it didn't reach cone 6 and the glazes were very weird. It was in December--I suppose the ambient temperature in my cold garage affected the firing time? I don't know! Anyway, I refired the pieces and they turned out just fine. I look forward to the experienced potters' comments. Would a pyrometer help?
