beautifulfreak
11-02-2006, 08:11 PM
I was surfing around looking for the answer to my previous post and came across this picture of an overfired electric kiln. OMG, what a mess.
http://www.flatrockclay.com/electrickilnmeltdown.html
I wonder if they were able to salvage the kiln or kiln furniture after that?
For all you clay/kiln newbies...this is what happens to clay when it is fired higher than the cone it is suppose to go to. It melts, turns to liquid, flows like lava across your shelf, down your kiln walls, onto the other shelves below ruining everything in its path. When the kiln cools the clay becomes solid again adhering to every surface it flowed over. To remove the mess one needs a chisel, hammer, and grinder and days and days of tedious work. The kiln might or might not be salvagable, the element likely will need to be replaced.
My first kiln was an overfired kiln that someone gave after the overfire. It was not as badly over fired as in the photo on this link.
I remember an firing in a gas kiln in college where someone had come in after the kiln had been loaded but before the kiln door was bricked up and tucked in a few small low fire clay made wares into our high fire cone 10 kiln. The pieces liquified and flowed hitting three shelves before luckily flowing in and near filling up a bowl on the bottom shelf, lucky because the mess didn't hit the kiln floor which would of cause major delays in the firing class work. It was unlucky for the person whose bowl it flowed into but we called it the hero bowl cause it saved the kiln. Never did find out who was responsible, no one would own up. I chipped the shelves off and the professor ground the rest off. Our normal proceedure was to show the responsible person how to clean the shelves and they got to do the work on their own time.
http://www.flatrockclay.com/electrickilnmeltdown.html
I wonder if they were able to salvage the kiln or kiln furniture after that?
For all you clay/kiln newbies...this is what happens to clay when it is fired higher than the cone it is suppose to go to. It melts, turns to liquid, flows like lava across your shelf, down your kiln walls, onto the other shelves below ruining everything in its path. When the kiln cools the clay becomes solid again adhering to every surface it flowed over. To remove the mess one needs a chisel, hammer, and grinder and days and days of tedious work. The kiln might or might not be salvagable, the element likely will need to be replaced.
My first kiln was an overfired kiln that someone gave after the overfire. It was not as badly over fired as in the photo on this link.
I remember an firing in a gas kiln in college where someone had come in after the kiln had been loaded but before the kiln door was bricked up and tucked in a few small low fire clay made wares into our high fire cone 10 kiln. The pieces liquified and flowed hitting three shelves before luckily flowing in and near filling up a bowl on the bottom shelf, lucky because the mess didn't hit the kiln floor which would of cause major delays in the firing class work. It was unlucky for the person whose bowl it flowed into but we called it the hero bowl cause it saved the kiln. Never did find out who was responsible, no one would own up. I chipped the shelves off and the professor ground the rest off. Our normal proceedure was to show the responsible person how to clean the shelves and they got to do the work on their own time.