Jim Kasper on tue 4 mar 08
Hey Gary,
Thanks for your post. I have no Pony in the Geil race but would
love to hear the best way to
Care for shelves. Currently I lean my shelves on their edge next to my kiln,
and also stack them on top of each other.
I am sure there is info out there, but in the last several years of reading
clayart, I don't think i have heard much discourse on the actual care of
shelves outside of maintainance, coating, and grinding clean. I thought
stacking on top of each other was a good thing to do.
Regards,
Jim
Oh yes now I remember why I left Clayart years ago, I had forgotten and came
back recently to see if it had changed at all. It's the place where a person
can post a kind word in defense of a business who has been a great supplier
of pottery equipment for many years, and immediately have his my words
twisted to say "the man is a thief". Paul Geil is no thief, I do not know
all of the details of the shelf problems but I do some facts. We as potter
do not always treat our equipment in the manner it is supposed to be used.
We start kilns faster than we should, fire faster, cool faster, we take
things to extremes all the time. Some people store shelves very
carefully...some lean them against hot kilns and stack them laying down on
to of each other making for tailer made cracking.
Gary Shaffer
Zafka Studios
Jensen Beach, FL
http://zafka.com
772-334-3070
William & Susan Schran User on thu 6 mar 08
On 3/4/08 5:46 PM, "Jim Kasper" wrote:
> Currently I lean my shelves on their edge next to my kiln,
> and also stack them on top of each other.
> I am sure there is info out there, but in the last several years of reading
> clayart, I don't think i have heard much discourse on the actual care of
> shelves outside of maintainance, coating, and grinding clean. I thought
> stacking on top of each other was a good thing to do.
We have two mini-skids built from wood up against a wall,
Shelves are stacked vertically on the skid leaning against the wall.
Now, having said that, at school we are storing our Advancer shelves inside
the kiln now. An incident of a very warm night, then cold morning, caused a
great deal of condensation on the shelves - I mean water running down off
the shelves! A quick call to Marshall at Smith Sharpe assured me that I
could towel them off and fire them, which I did with no problems.
For folks new to kilns/firing: stack shelves wash-to-wash & back-to-back.
This way you avoid getting any kiln wash on the under side of the shelf.
Also, if you fire hot (^10), or fire to ^6 and your kiln is larger (28") and
the shelves you are using are less than 3/4" thick, then you'll need to
periodically rotate (flip) them to prevent warping.
Bill
--
William "Bill" Schran
wschran@cox.net
wschran@nvcc.edu
http://www.creativecreekartisans.com
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