Kiln Project

The kiln is the central piece of equipment in any ceramic studio. After looking at a number of commercial gas kilns, my husband and I decided to try to build our own. We settled on a 28 cu. ft. "Minnesota Flat Top" model. Building your own kiln turned out to be a bigger job than we expected, and many changes and modifications had to be made along the way. The first thing we found was that our burners were too small, which resulted in the purchase of a pair of high powered flame throwers. Then our flat top collapsed and was replaced with an arch. Next, the metal structure that held the role-a-way door needed to be replaced by a stronger welded angle iron frame. The design we were following dispensed with the bag wall (an internal wall that protect the ceramic ware from direct contact with the flame from the burners). We found this was a mistake, as it resulted in very uneven heat distribution within the kiln, so we now have a "modified bag wall" that has solved the problem. We are still learning about our kiln, but we can now fire it to cone 10 in reduction on a consistent basis.

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