[Clayart] Kiln with soft floor?

[Paul Gerhold]

So the entire weight of the load was resting on less than one square inch of kiln posts. Either put a whole shelf on on the bottom of the kiln or rest the posts on broken pieces of shelf. Anything that will distribute the load over more area will work. 

Paul

> On Aug 27, 2019, at 11:44 PM, Teri Lee <terileepottery at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> A clay colleague of mine recently came to possess an old Duncan kiln. She
> has no idea how old it is, but she is guesstimating it was built in the
> 1970s (no automatic anything, no vent, uses a kiln sitter). She has no
> manual, so she figured she would place three 1/2-inch kiln posts on the
> kiln floor to hold up an initial shelf, then stack her pots the usual way.
> 
> She did a cone 5 firing and all seemed to go well, but when she unloaded
> the kiln, she found that the three kiln posts had actually sunk slightly
> into the kiln floor, leaving three "dimples."
> 
> I have never heard of a kiln with such a soft bottom. Was the kiln built
> with super soft brick or other material? Does this kind of sinking indicate
> that the kiln is deteriorating? Is it safe to use? Should she place a shelf
> directly onto the bottom of the kiln to evenly distribute the weight of her
> pots and stack per usual? Any and all insights are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> Teri Lee
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