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Kilns

Overcoming a temporary kiln issue
Terry Wilson

[This is a 10/18/22 repost from our previous groups.io mailing list, Chat@MemberConnect]


I thought I’d share my recent kiln experience in case it comes up with anyone else. I know a lot of you have 3 section kilns.


I have a 3 section L&L kiln, the smaller type with 8 sides. During a recent bisque firing something happened and one of my elements fried. As you know, our Ventura Market is coming up, but I’m also doing a plant sale this weekend, the Yes Store beginning in November, and I have a custom order due at the beginning of November as well. So this was very ill-timed, as I had no spare parts on hand (soon to be changed though).


After arranging for new elements to be shipped from the east coast, which is already a week out, I discovered that I also need a new brick and element holder where the incident happened, and later discovered that the relay was bad too. So a further delay! (I have no idea what happened, but it was kind of epic.)


This all happened on a Thursday. After a lot of anxiety and teeth gnashing, a light bulb went off in my head on Saturday, and I decided to turn my kiln into a 2-section kiln. Since I’d already dismantled the thing to inspect and remove the middle section, I just kept on going. (For L&L kilns, they give instructions for doing this buried in their knowledge base. It’s pretty simple.).


Sunday morning I started my bisque, and I’m back in business! BTW, because I wasn’t tightly packed the first time around, the 2 ring kiln accommodated about 90% of my pieces.


I’m in no particular rush to fix the out of service ring, and will likely keep things the way they are for a while. It’s easier to load and I can do small loads.


A couple of notes: The 3 ring kiln will go to ^10, but the 2-ring kiln will only go to ^5 (according to L&L). And as expected, the energy usage is 2/3 (I track the electric meter), but it took about the same amount of time to fire.


Hope this helps anyone in the future!


Terry

Terry Wilson

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