ranmcc on sun 7 sep 03
I just bought a used 1027 Skutt with manual switches. Can someone give me
their firing schedule for low, medium, and high per hour for bisque to Cone
06 and Glaze fire to Cone 6? I do not have a manual and Skutt's web site
locks my computer when I try to download or get information off of their
site.
Randy
South Carolina
Snail Scott on mon 8 sep 03
At 05:59 PM 9/7/03 -0400, you wrote:
>I just bought a used 1027 Skutt with manual switches. Can someone give me
>their firing schedule for low, medium, and high per hour for bisque to Cone
>06 and Glaze fire to Cone 6?
No one else's firing schedule will be right for you;
we don't know what kind of work you are making, with
what kind of clay, how thick, how big, what kind of
glazes, etc. All these things matter much more than
the brand of the kiln.
The instructions provided with most kilns seem based
on firing slip-cast greenware, if you ask me. Hand-
made work is much more variable.
If your work is thinly thrown pottery and medium to
small in size, the usual '1 hour of candling, 1 hour
on low, 1 hour on medium, then to high...' (as
specified in the Skutt instructions) works OK.
If your work is quite thick, you may need to candle
for several hours or more, depending on the moisture
remaining in the piece and the coarseness of the clay.
I thnk that the speed of turnups is not really
critical with electric kilns, as even the best of the
standard models won't heat up really fast. So, I tend
to do turnups (for bisque) about every 1/2 hour for
thin work, and every two hours for really big thick
stuff or stuff with irregular thickness and weird
angles and joints. One hour between turnups is not a
bad average, though. Remember that most of the work
is being done after you switch to high.
For work that's already been bisqued, I still candle
for about an hour, then do turnups about every half-
hour. How high you are firing is pretty much irrelevant,
since you aren't doing any body or glaze reduction to
plan for, and you are pretty much stuck with firing at
the kiln's rate of increase. After you turn it to high,
it's just a waiting game (unless adjustments are
needed to even it out) regardless of the intended cone.
I assume you are going to use witness cones for every
firing at first, and regularly thereafter. (Right?)
Letting the sitter shut down your firing is OK if you
don't much care about the exact cone (I let the sitter
shut off my bisque, for instance), but you'll get
better results from your glaze firings if you use the
sitter as a failsafe only.
Soaking or firing down depends on your glazes. Some
benefit from it, some don't, but nobody else's
schedule will be optimum for your work. A little
experimentation will be necessary to find what's best
for you.
-Snail
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