My bisque kiln was loaded LATE last night when I got home from Minneapolis. It was pre-set to turn on at 4:00am this morning. And my bisque kiln cycle is usually around 12 hours long. So when I got back into the studio around 6:30pm I was more than a little concerned when the kiln was still on… and not even close to being finished!

I discussed my kiln “predicament” with my studio neighbor Karen Patinkin who also had a few pieces in that kiln. Ironically, she had loaded another bisque kiln of her own work that she turned on around noon… and her’s was going to finish ahead of mine. Go figure.

There was really nothing I could do but to wait and hope that it kept going. Although down deep I knew it wouldn’t finish. Eventually, around 10:30pm the kiln finally shut off and gave me an Error Code 1. So I called our studio operations manager to discuss my dilemma. I was really hoping that the pieces inside would be close enough to be considered “bisqued.” As my soda kiln is scheduled for later this week, I need to get these pieces through and ready to load on Friday night.

After much discussion, we all figured out that my kiln made it to a top temperature of 1727-degrees. I was hoping to get to cone 05… but at that point I was hovering somewhere between cone 09 and cone 08. The general consensus was that my pots would be good and would not need to be refired. So I guess they’re done for the day. Our guess is that one of the heating elements stopped working. At least I don’t need to unload, reload and refire eveything! Close enough… I hope we’re correct. I guess we’ll find out when I unload if we were right or not…