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help with skutt km 1027

updated sat 31 may 97

 

Vikki Dow on sun 11 may 97

Hi All-
We have a fairly new Skutt KM 1027 electric kiln with automatic controller.
We've only fired maybe 6 times, and we're having some problems. We just
did a bisque fire, set to ^04, slow - took about 11 hours and 45 minutes.
We put a cone pack on each of the four shelves. The top one came out
perfect - ^05 slumped, ^04 half-bent, ^03 just starting to bend. The
middle two shelves over-fired: all 3 cones bent more than half-way. On
the bottom shelf, ^05 barely started to bend - it underfired. Has anyone
else experienced this? We loaded the shelves pretty evenly. Should we be
loading differently? Any suggestions or ideas?
Thanks...

Libby Hanline
Stilltree Pottery
Oakland, CA
vdow@muse.sfusd.k12.ca.us

Christian R. Eberle on mon 12 may 97

> Hi All-
> We have a fairly new Skutt KM 1027 electric kiln with automatic
controller.
> We've only fired maybe 6 times, and we're having some problems. We just
> did a bisque fire, set to ^04, slow - took about 11 hours and 45 minutes.
> We put a cone pack on each of the four shelves. The top one came out
> perfect - ^05 slumped, ^04 half-bent, ^03 just starting to bend. The
> middle two shelves over-fired: all 3 cones bent more than half-way. On
> the bottom shelf, ^05 barely started to bend - it underfired. Has anyone
> else experienced this? We loaded the shelves pretty evenly. Should we
be
> loading differently? Any suggestions or ideas?
> Thanks...
>
> Libby Hanline
> Stilltree Pottery
> Oakland, CA
> vdow@muse.sfusd.k12.ca.us

I have the same kiln. Here's the advice my dealer gave me. He said if I'm
within 1 cone top to bottom, I'm doing well. He suggested a 10 minute hold
time at the end of the firing to even things out. I found this to work
fine for small to medium size pieces. I have since increased the hold to
45 minutes with larger pieces however. I am firing ^6 porcelain with an
Amaco clear glaze with superb (and consistant) results.

Chris
ceberle@warwick.net