Roxanne Hunnicutt on tue 20 mar 07
Can anyone help me with my new kiln. I have plans to do a Cone 6 reduction.
The higher fire schedules are everywhere, but where can I
find a suggested schedule for the reduction of cone 5 or cone 6. What book
or where on the net, or can someone tell me one?
I just got a gas kiln. It is hand made and downdraft with those old burners
(not forced air) and a venturi draft, as per Nils Lou. Any suggestions will
be gratefully accepted.
Where should I start?
Thanks,
Roxanne in OR
Marcia Selsor on wed 21 mar 07
When I fired to ^6 in our gas kilns that I built in Montana, I'd
start in the morning at 7 am with one burner on low.
About 9 I'd put a second burner on low. (each kiln had two large
venturi burners not of my choice)
I'd start turning it up about 10:30, watch for ^09-04 body reduction
between noon to 1.
Glaze reduction happened around 4 to 7 depending on the load,
weather, barometric pressure, wind, humidity etc.
and if I were going for reds. (see Michael Bailey's Oriental Glazes.
Mine are the only ^6 glazes in the book including a yummy red).
One kiln was about 28 cubic feet and the car kiln was about 60 cubic
feet. I fired sometimes 4 x's per week for about 20 years.
Very routine and very predictable. The dampers were marked for
reduction with a line.The damper was 1/2 open during most of the
firing, but they had installed one chimney for sharing with a
horizontal drag to the $4500 18" piece of steel pipe (not of my
design nor influence)
Barely had to turn the huge burners on.
They were way too big for the car kiln. The sprung arch kiln was more
to scale.
Firing kilns on someone else's schedule for a different kiln won't
really work. You just have to experiment.
Sit with it and be sure to make kiln gods for each firing. My
successors threw out years worth of kiln gods and had two fires
before the end of the first semester.
I am superstitious.
Good luck.
Marcia Selsor
http://marciaselsor.com
On Mar 21, 2007, at 12:13 AM, Roxanne Hunnicutt wrote:
> Can anyone help me with my new kiln. I have plans to do a Cone 6
> reduction.
> The higher fire schedules are everywhere, but where can I
> find a suggested schedule for the reduction of cone 5 or cone 6.
> What book
> or where on the net, or can someone tell me one?
>
> I just got a gas kiln. It is hand made and downdraft with those old
> burners
> (not forced air) and a venturi draft, as per Nils Lou. Any
> suggestions will
> be gratefully accepted.
>
> Where should I start?
>
> Thanks,
> Roxanne in OR
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