Marcia Selsor on wed 1 jul 98
I had crusaders for years. One survived a flood in 1978 in my rammed earth
studio.
Probably your top elements are out or a bad switch. Check the knobs. The
handles can pop off and be pointing at the wrong setting.
Marcia in Montana
Jim Cullen wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Here's one to add to your list. Yesterday (6/28/98) I did my first bisque
> firing in 15 years (the same kiln). I use a Crusader 724(?) 6 control knobs
> and 12 elements. It's been in storage until about a month ago when I built a
> studio in my garage and added an 8' x 12' shed which holds my kiln and my
> gardening table. Anyhow, I candeled on setting 1 with the peeps and lid open
> from 3:00 pm on Saturday til 7:00 am Sunday and then cranked it up to setting
> 2 and every hour moved up another notch. At setting 5 I closed the peeps and
> the lid. Because this was my first firing I set a timer and watched it closely
> every hour. Fortunately I set two cone pads, 05, 06, and 07 cones, one on the
> middle shelf and one on the top shelf. I also use a kiln setter with an 06
> bar. At hour seven I noticed that the cones on the middle shelf were starting
> to bend and the top cones were standing straight and tall. When I came back at
> hour 8 the middle cones were down and the top were still standing straight. I
> stopped the firing. Since it was a bisque the worse that could happen was some
> pots would be underfired and the bottom stuff would be a little overfired. For
> bisque I felt I was safe. I determined that the top two elements weren't
> working. The might explain the uneven firing. Now it's off to figuring out
> what the solution might be. Bad contacts? Bad switch? Bad karma? That was
> really a near miss. Could have been a glaze firing. Better to find out now.
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