Scott Hunnicutt on thu 9 feb 06
hey all,
I a begining potter and am leaning towards buying a small 120v kiln. I am
looking at a olympic doll test electric kiln with an electronic timer.
Can anyone point in the direction of:
steps of what to do through a bisque fire, and a glaze fire etc.
I will be mostly be firing red and white earthenware and maybe low fire
porcelain.
also, if I get an electronic timer do I still need cones in the kiln?
thanks for any replies,
scott hunnicutt
P.S. also any links that would help me with other basic firing questions
would be help a big help.
Dannon Rhudy on fri 10 feb 06
Scott, you'll still need cones to fire, or should use them.
Maybe you should save your electronic controller money
for a bigger future kiln. Those small ones are REALLY
small. And cones are reliable, inexpensive. As to the
firings themselves - that's a matter of practice, practice.
Look in the archives for about a gazillion posts on firing.
regards
Dannon Rhudy
> hey all,
>
> I a begining potter and am leaning towards buying a small 120v kiln. I am
> looking at a olympic doll test electric kiln with an electronic timer.
> Can anyone point in the direction of:
> steps of what to do through a bisque fire, and a glaze fire etc.
>
> also, if I get an electronic timer do I still need cones in the kiln?
>
---
---
William & Susan Schran User on fri 10 feb 06
On 2/9/06 10:05 PM, "Scott Hunnicutt" wrote:
> I am
> looking at a olympic doll test electric kiln with an electronic timer.
> Can anyone point in the direction of:
> steps of what to do through a bisque fire, and a glaze fire etc.
>
> I will be mostly be firing red and white earthenware and maybe low fire
> porcelain.
>
> also, if I get an electronic timer do I still need cones in the kiln?
I had an Olympic test kiln as you describe. Kiln was ok, did what it was
advertised to be, but got rid of it as it did not give me the same results
as my larger kiln. Now I just do tests along with my "usual" firings.
If you want the kiln due to circumstances that do not allow hook-up to a
240V outlet, that's ok, but you'll need to make sure you have a dedicated
120v, 20amp outlet that can be placed at least near a window for venting and
on a non-combustible surface.
Several manufacturers have small test kilns and have instructions online.
I must say, instructions for the Olympic left a lot to be desired.
I always recommend L&L, IMHO they're one of the better kilns and
manufacturers. Here's their online instructions for a manual kiln:
http://www.hotkilns.com/fire-manual.pdf
-- William "Bill" Schran
Fredericksburg, Virginia
wschran@cox.net
wschran@nvcc.edu
John Hesselberth on fri 10 feb 06
>> looking at a olympic doll test electric kiln with an electronic
>> timer.
>> Can anyone point in the direction of:
>> steps of what to do through a bisque fire, and a glaze fire etc.
I have a computer controlled Olympic doll kiln. Mine has crimped
connectors connecting the element to the wiring. If they still have
crimped connectors I would not buy another one. They are a totally
unsatisfactory way to join wiring of this type in my opinion. The
factory installed ones will be just fine, but wait until you replace
elements and try to do the crimping yourself. I had to totally
rebuild mine with split bolt connectors to get something that worked.
You will regret buying any kiln with crimped connectors. Always ask
what kind of connectors a kiln has. Post and nut connectors are fine.
Split bolts connectors are fine. Crimped connectors are not!
Regards,
John
John Hesselberth on fri 10 feb 06
On Feb 10, 2006, at 6:51 AM, Dannon Rhudy wrote:
> Maybe you should save your electronic controller money
> for a bigger future kiln.
Hi Scott, Dannon,
If you do buy a small test kiln an electronic controller is almost
essential if you want to be able to reproduce your results on a
bigger kiln. Small kilns, just turned off, cool like a shot and
control of cooling rate is an extremely important issue in being able
to reproduce results kiln to kiln.
While I am very critical of the crimped connectors on Olympic doll
kilns, the fact that I had a controller saved by bacon. I was able to
reproduce the results on larger kilns by matching the cooling rate. A
controller is the easiest and best way to do that--you can fire down
in a controlled way.
Regards,
John
William & Susan Schran User on sat 11 feb 06
On 2/10/06 7:29 PM, "John Hesselberth" wrote:
> I had to totally
> rebuild mine with split bolt connectors to get something that worked.
> You will regret buying any kiln with crimped connectors. Always ask
> what kind of connectors a kiln has. Post and nut connectors are fine.
> Split bolts connectors are fine. Crimped connectors are not!
I have to totally agree with John on this.
In my previous response about the Olympic test kiln, I didn't mention we had
an Axner Super Kiln (the largest one), that is an Olympic kiln. I replaced
the elements once and that was enough for me to decide to get rid of this
kiln.
Within months of new elements and new crimps, there was corrosion and
shorts. In each instance, I replaced the connections with spilt bolt
connectors and had no more problems.
This kiln was all one piece, no sections! To replace the floor element, I
had to hang over the top on my stomach (lots of cushioning!) and let all the
blood rush to my head.
FYI - I also replaced elements on a Skutt kiln that also uses crimped
connections.
-- William "Bill" Schran
Fredericksburg, Virginia
wschran@cox.net
wschran@nvcc.edu
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