This baby was a serendipitous acquisition yesterday. For over a year, I've been occasionally (when I remember) to look on craigslist, or Kijiji for a used pottery kiln to fire ceramic beads in. Yesterday, I decided to have a look on craigslist for craft supplies for the kids - remembered to check out the pottery section - and there it was!
My glass kiln is far too small to hold more than a few beads at a time (plus it doesn't really get hot enough). Hardly worth it. Since my experiments with ceramic are just that - experiments, it certainly does not justify the expense of a new, or even newer used kiln. I wanted cheap, as in come get this thing out of here and you can have it kind of cheap. This one wasn't free, but well within the price range I could afford! And it was close to home - Dan and I drove a total of 7 minutes to get this monster. It's huge, old, but it works! Great shape, all the elements in great order, plus a coil of extra elements. Only one little break on one of the bricks, but I can easily cement that back in place. Paragon kilns bought out Duncan, so if something goes wrong with it, I'll be in good hands.
Yay! This kiln was originally purchased in 1971 - making it one year older than I am. Here it is in my front hall, and here it will live until I clean out the garage, and find an electrician to wire up the garage.
This kiln fires up to cone 8, meaning I'll be able to fire any of the mid-fire clays, along with the low fire clays I have. I can't wait!!
Last week I also took my first wheel pottery class. It was a huge amount of fun, and of course wheel throwing is much harder than it looks. I have three blobs (literally) to show for my first attempts. All of mine collapsed. Hopefully, I'll have better luck next week.
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