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Has anyone here ever made their own slab roller? Or seen plans for one? My husband is super-handy, and we have every tool imaginable, so he insists he can make one if I find a plan for it.

I ran my first bisque fire earlier this week and that went well. Yesterday I tried a glaze fire, and that did not go well at all! I was attempting a Cone 6, but it only reached 1750 F before it started to cool down. I purchased the kiln used. It's an Evenheat Perfect Fire 6320 XL (23x29). Any trouble-shooting advice would be greatly appreciated!

Now that I have all of these pieces to glaze, I am interested in what others use. In the studio at school, we mixed all of our own glazes. This was done by the studio techs and the advanced students. Once I learned to mix the studio glazes, I experimented and came up with two nice glazes of my own. I have the recipes, but unfortunately I don't have a scale or the ingredients to do this at home. So for the first time, I am using glazes purchased from a local supplier.

My question is, which do you prefer? Your own mixes, or pre-made glazes? Do you use both?

Yay Me! I just ran my kiln for the very first time, all by myself, and it worked. Those of you who have been doing this forever are thinking, "so what?", but I am very excited! I wasn't sure if I would be able to figure out the controls, which turned out to be ridiculously easy. We did blow the fuse, but once my husband replaced it with the correct size, we were fine.

Now I have a LOT of glazing to do.