trish wrote:
Hello Lifesavers,

To answer some of your questions...I live in Spring, TX, northern
suburb of Houston. There are a lot of arts & crafts types around here,
but so far I have not found much help for my kiln questions. People
who have experience around here seem to guard it like Fort Knox. My
teacher at the junior college held a masters in studio arts from Cal
Berkeley and did/does all kiln loading as he claims to have never
broken pieces due to his methods??? So, I got some good education as
to making stuff, but little or no practical experience as to loading
and firing. I have bought books and taken some out from the library,
but kiln speak is like Greek to me. I have very little
understanding...


The kiln I bought is a Blue Diamond model 123D. It stands about chest
high and is about arms width -- pretty big. I was told that it had
never been used but sustained minor damage in storage (a couple of
missing/broken bricks). I have yet to try and turn it on though I
spent a bundle having special wiring put in to accommodate it. I
think it is manual. I also think it needs what I've read is kiln
furniture??? One suggestion from another neighbor is that I just plug
it in and see what happens. Since it goes to 2300 degrees that is
intimidating; I don't want to set fire to the house if I screw up.

Looking at their website, it does appear to be a manual kiln, with a
kiln watcher. I'd call the company and see if they have a repair rep
around - they would be familiar with the kilns and should be able to
check it out for safety. If you need kiln furniture (posts & shelves),
you can get it from them too (although mail order is likely cheaper -
but if you buy local, they might come over & show you the ropes).

The story is that this kiln was bought for my neighbor's mom (who won
awards for her ceramics), but who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and
cannot be safely around any type of electrical oven-type appliances.
Though never used I can see a couple of missing bricks. She gave me
some cones -- different sizes, and I don't even know which size goes
with what.

There's four sizes/shapes of cones - small bars to use in the kiln
sitter (which is a backup safety device to shut off the kiln when it's
hot enough), small cones that can be used in the kiln sitter or visible
through peep holes to monitor the firing, and large cones that are used
to monitor the firing process (cone packs visible through peepholes
and/or scattered around the kiln). There's also self-supporting cones
(large cones on a base) that don't need holders and are used the same as
large cones.



I guess I am kiln challenged mentally and though new to ceramics, I'm
a mom with grown children and not in physical shape to do more than my
own work. I can't see me helping load pottery at the college...just
too old for that even if they would let me (very proprietary around
here). I've even thought of selling the works but would first like to
give this a real try, especially due to the cost of the wiring.


See if they'll let you watch while they load a time or two - that will
give you an idea of what's involved, and if the loaders are at all
chatty, you'll pick up a lot of tips on the way by.

I did try some time back to contact Blue Diamond and was not
successful, maybe things have improved in Metairie since then, but
still don't know if I will understand a manual. So, there are lots of
knobs and all I think I understand so far is slowly raise the
temperature for eight hours to bisque??? But what temperature and how
slowly?

Bisque is usually to cone 06 or 04 (depending on the clay and glazes -
I've been taught to bisque to 06, fire to 6, the glazes recommend 04
bisque). Hard to tell without looking at the kiln, but... what I'd
expect to see is 2 or three knobs marked "high/medium/low" - those
control the elements, plus a timer knob that turns the kiln off when it
runs out (backup to the kiln sitter).

There's some useful pdfs at
http://www.brackers.com/pdf_library/pdf_library.cfm that discuss cones
and kiln sitters. With luck, you have a Dawson kiln sitter and the
manual is there for it.

L&L Kiln's website has a lot of good info on it - including this one on
firing a manual kiln. The first discussion is a glaze fire, the second
is a bisque fire.

http://www.hotkilns.com/fire-manual-kiln.html

They also have other pdfs in the download section.




Also there are several octagonal looking shelf things...I guess this
is kiln furniture, but nothing to hold them up. Sorry to be so dumb,
but I really didn't expect this to be such a mystery. Thanks for the
feedback, though, it feels great to actually have people who seem
willing to share what they know. Any and all advice is most welcome!


Ahh, you have shelves, but no posts.... You'll need 3 posts per half
shelf (I suspect you can use 3 with a full shelf too, set up as a
triangle, but I only have half shelves, and would probably go with 4 per
full shelf). The pack I got with my kiln came with sets of (6 each)
1/2", 1", 2", 3", 4" as I recall.

... Good luck

.... Bruce