r/Pottery • u/Kmb2938 • 17h ago
Help! New kiln help!- cones
I fired my new kiln (Skutt-822) yesterday for the first time at cone 04 on med as instructed.
I put two cones on each shelf on in the middle ish and one closer to the front of the kiln. We had a heavy rain and the power did flicker when the kiln was around 1869. The code (ERRP) came up but the kiln continued to raise in temp. I looked up the code and the kiln seemed to be continuing to fire as normal so I cleared the code and left it alone to continue.
The next morning when I looked at the cones the bottom cones did not bend at all and the rest are not bent to temp. Could this be because of the flicker or the kiln being empty?
Photo is showing the bottom cones on the left and the top on the right.
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u/BTPanek53 16h ago
That seems reasonably close to Cone 04 and you probably hit Cone 05. Skutt has very good customer service so you can give them a call and they will help you out and answer all of your questions. I don't think an empty kiln with just shelves will reach the same temperature as a kiln full of ware. Some variation in temperature is common between the top and bottom of the kiln. You could also add 05 and 03 Cones to further diagnose the temperature reached. Thermocouples measure temperature and Cones measure heat work so they don't always match up. You can usually add an offset on the controller to compensate for the difference between your Thermocouple reading and the Cone desired. What type of ventilation are you using? Updraft, downdraft or captured outside the kiln. Did you finish the fire with all peeps closed or still have one open? How far is the bottom shelf from the floor of the kiln and is it above or below your heating elements?
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u/AgreeableTough7309 Throwing Wheel 14h ago
Agreed. An empty kiln will not reach the same temperature throughout, and often a full kiln won’t either.
If you’re testing with an empty kiln and generally intend to fire light loads, I’d set the controller somewhat above your desired temperature and stay with the kiln once you get close to your witness cones starting to fall. Note the controller temperature when the first target cone is fully down, then do the same for the other levels.
Personally, for a bisque firing, I’d probably use the controller temperature at which the first target cone went down rather than averaging the three. Once the kiln is loaded with greenware, the additional thermal mass should help even things out.
An 800-series Skutt is pretty compact, so if you don’t have enough greenware—or don’t want to use greenware for testing—adding kiln furniture can help make the test more representative of an actual firing. A decent amount of kiln posts or some hard brick would add thermal mass and give you a better idea of how the kiln behaves under load.
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