Student Tips:

Kiln Firing Ramp Schedule

This is the basic preset Cone 5 schedule for Skutt Kilns.

With the help of Josh, one of the techs at Skutt, I have tweaked it slightly to fire my cone 5/6 glazes.

The highlighted areas show the changes made to the original Skutt schedule. I have added a 20 minute hold at the top temperature of 2160° F to add to the heat work and reach a cone 5.5. My cone pack shows that cone 5 is completely down and cone 6 is partially bent.

• You can play with the length of time you are doing this hold. Initially I was only holding 5 min at 2160° F which is a perfect cone 5 in my kiln. But I wanted to make sure that my clay body was vitrified.

In addition I have added a 6th segment.

The reason for this segment is to drop the kilns temperature and hold it for 30 minutes at 1900° F which helps to heal over any pinholes or blisters in the glaze.

Since I have switched to this schedule, I have had virtually no issues with pinholes. (knock on wood!)

Bisque Firing

I always do a Cone 04 bisque.

I like to do a preheat usually for a minimum of 4 hours at 180° F to make sure that there is no moisture left in the clay prior to the bisque firing, sometimes LONGER!  This helps to make sure there are no blow ups in the kiln. If I were working in a community studio, or in a school setting, I would probably do a 10-12 hour preheat as an extra precaution. Air bubbles do not cause explosions, moisture does.