Monday was one of the most nerve wrecking days of my life.
Before I could use my kiln to fire pots, I had to do test fire, empty to check that everything was working. I got up at 6:15 and plugged in all the extension leads, this is not an ideal way to do things but since we still haven't got power out to my workshop it's the way it has to be. To keep everything as safe as possible, I have run an outdoor extension cable from a socket in my laundry room, that has an external door between that and the rest of the house, and from that good quality extension cable across my workshop to the kiln. We did try moving the kiln nearer the sockets, but released that that put it right underneath wooden roof beam, at a low part of the roof, making safety iffy.
So I gulped hard and set it going, the programme unit is fantastic and gave me an ongoing temperature and I have no need to worry about cones, or when to change settings, the magic little programming box deals with that.
Happily at 5:20 the programme reached the required 1000 degrees, told me it was HOT and proceeded to come down in temperature. The house is still standing, and today I have set it off gain on the same programme, for it's first bisque firing, it's not quite as scary s Monday but still plenty exciting s this time it is full of my creations.
Before I could use my kiln to fire pots, I had to do test fire, empty to check that everything was working. I got up at 6:15 and plugged in all the extension leads, this is not an ideal way to do things but since we still haven't got power out to my workshop it's the way it has to be. To keep everything as safe as possible, I have run an outdoor extension cable from a socket in my laundry room, that has an external door between that and the rest of the house, and from that good quality extension cable across my workshop to the kiln. We did try moving the kiln nearer the sockets, but released that that put it right underneath wooden roof beam, at a low part of the roof, making safety iffy.
So I gulped hard and set it going, the programme unit is fantastic and gave me an ongoing temperature and I have no need to worry about cones, or when to change settings, the magic little programming box deals with that.
Happily at 5:20 the programme reached the required 1000 degrees, told me it was HOT and proceeded to come down in temperature. The house is still standing, and today I have set it off gain on the same programme, for it's first bisque firing, it's not quite as scary s Monday but still plenty exciting s this time it is full of my creations.