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Old 2008-12-17, 8:32am
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az_nativeart az_nativeart is offline
unique porcelain beads
 
Join Date: Apr 12, 2007
Location: Phoenix
Posts: 107
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I leave the kiln as soon as I've got the lid shut and go to bed usually. Have been known to leave for a couple hours or more if the kiln is shut. But I'm doing a bit different stuff than you guys too. My kiln ramps up then is mechanically shut off when the cone bends.

In over 20 years I've never had that malfunction except once when I had a shelf support too close to the cone rod and it got stuck on the shelf support so the weight wouldn't fall because the rod expands when it gets hot. That was a bit of a melt down but not a disaster. Ruined the ware in the kiln but no damage to shelves or kiln. Other than that I've had a few odd things happen like forgot to turn up the kiln all the way and it was still on in the morning. Did that with egyptian paste and it wasn't a good thing for the paste but again no kiln or other damage. I've had about 3 or 4 cases where the kiln was still running for one reason or another but not past temperature. ie. forgot to turn it up to high, set the pyrometer to hold instead of shut off by accident, didn't close the kiln. None of those resulted in any sort of problems other than the kiln was hot when it should have been cool and I probably burned 3X the electricity I should have.

All that said it isn't in the house. When it was in the house and about 3 inches from a combustable wall I did babysit it and have had the 'other' side of the wall hot to the touch many times but never a mishap. Now the kiln is in its own room with a fan and is at least a foot from the walls the floors are ceramic and its in a steel building. Very little combustibles anywhere around. I don't have a digital controller. I don't think I would trust a digital as much as I trust the one I have because it is computer and computer things are sensitive to heat. It sort of seems like a problem waiting to happen. Also most of my firings are pretty long so babysitting them would take forever.
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