Ceramics for Christmas

For christmas my mom purchased a kiln for me.  She found it at an estate sale and talked to me about it, but once I didn't hear anything else I figured she didn't go to the estate sale.  It was out in Rancho, it made sense.  But she did get it and that was quite the Christmas surprise.  I would have tried it out before now, but I've been sick since Christmas.

So basically I've run  my test batch a bisque.  I stuck some green ware sculptures into the kiln and have been firing it for 6 hours about.  The auto timer is running.  This will tell me if the auto timer works, because I'm currently missing a small but important part of the kiln that turns off the kiln automatically after the combination of the right amount of time and temperature as occurred.

I'm flying blind here.  I've never fired anything.  But this little kiln is supposed to be pretty easy.  We shall see!!

I used 06 cone, 04 cone, and 03 cone.  My hope is that I would be able to reach 04 cone which is from what I can tell, the recommended heat for a bisque.   How ever the plate on the side of my kiln is troubling.  It claims that max temp for the kiln is about 1200 F.  Which is acually pretty low..  around 018 low.  But that same plaque claims the kiln can reach Cone 02.

I'm running a test batch.  I don't even know if 6 hours of baking and the appropriate amount of time cooling is right, but at least I had some cones in there.  Maybe something will have happened.  I do wish I'd put some of the lower cones into the kiln so I could see that it at least went up past those cones.  would have been helpful.  Since I only used the higher cones (03-06) they may not be bent at all.

TEST!!

I'm hoping to bring it with me to the apartment, but I'm not sure that the apartments electrical system can handle it.  Perhaps I should purchase a fire extinguisher.