john eden on wed 3 mar 99
Jennifer,
I think you will find that the alumina shelves sold by Bailey are made by
'Diamond' not 'Acme Marl'. I do not know if there is any significant
difference, Diamond shelves are also made in England. I have been using
Acme Marl shelves since the sixties and have never had a problem with them
either in electric, gas or oil. It is extremely important to get a shelf
that is right for the job. For low fire I don't think that you would have
any trouble whatever the thickness or dimensions (within reason of course).
But for high fire it does matter (as you have experienced), with alumina
shelves I would go with the 3/4" or 1" thick ones and choose a size that
keeps the distance between stilts (posts) reasonable.
As far as I know ConeArt kilns are still being made in Ontario with Frank
Tucker in charge even though they owned by Shimpo and are sold by Bailey
among others in the USA.
Although we do not fire to Cone 10 in our electric kilns I would not expect
any problems if I wanted to use the ConeArts for that temperature, they are
designed for it.
Feel free to visit us here in Montreal to inspect a couple of conearts, our
car kiln and the alumina shelves we are using, you are not that far away,
just next door :-) . Cheers, John.
John Eden / Ceramics
John Abbott College
Ste. Anne de Bellevue
Quebec, H9X 3L9
Canada
Tel. # 514-457-6610 ext.395
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