Help...

Hello Lifesavers,

To answer some of your questions...I live in Spring, TX, northern
suburb of Houston. There are a lot of arts & crafts types around here,
but so far I have not found much help for my kiln questions. People
who have experience around here seem to guard it like Fort Knox. My
teacher at the junior college held a masters in studio arts from Cal
Berkeley and did/does all kiln loading as he claims to have never
broken pieces due to his methods??? So, I got some good education as
to making stuff, but little or no practical experience as to loading
and firing. I have bought books and taken some out from the library,
but kiln speak is like Greek to me. I have very little
understanding...



The kiln I bought is a Blue Diamond model 123D. It stands about chest
high and is about arms width -- pretty big. I was told that it had
never been used but sustained minor damage in storage (a couple of
missing/broken bricks). I have yet to try and turn it on though I
spent a bundle having special wiring put in to accommodate it. I
think it is manual. I also think it needs what I've read is kiln
furniture??? One suggestion from another neighbor is that I just plug
it in and see what happens. Since it goes to 2300 degrees that is
intimidating; I don't want to set fire to the house if I screw up.



The story is that this kiln was bought for my neighbor's mom (who won
awards for her ceramics), but who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and
cannot be safely around any type of electrical oven-type appliances.
Though never used I can see a couple of missing bricks. She gave me
some cones -- different sizes, and I don't even know which size goes
with what.



I guess I am kiln challenged mentally and though new to ceramics, I'm
a mom with grown children and not in physical shape to do more than my
own work. I can't see me helping load pottery at the college...just
too old for that even if they would let me (very proprietary around
here). I've even thought of selling the works but would first like to
give this a real try, especially due to the cost of the wiring.



I did try some time back to contact Blue Diamond and was not
successful, maybe things have improved in Metairie since then, but
still don't know if I will understand a manual. So, there are lots of
knobs and all I think I understand so far is slowly raise the
temperature for eight hours to bisque??? But what temperature and how
slowly?



Also there are several octagonal looking shelf things...I guess this
is kiln furniture, but nothing to hold them up. Sorry to be so dumb,
but I really didn't expect this to be such a mystery. Thanks for the
feedback, though, it feels great to actually have people who seem
willing to share what they know. Any and all advice is most welcome!