A Great Studio Day and a bonus Kiln Fail

Soup Mugs, XL Round Mugs and Tankards all handled today.

I jumped right into work this morning, running right downstairs to check on the dryness of the XL round mugs I had left uncovered and make sure all the pieces I had covered didn't dry out anyway. Everything was ready to go, so I started by turning over all the uncovered pieces so the bottoms could dry out as well as the tops, then started on adding handles to soup mugs. All through the day I trimmed and added handles to pieces. Ro came in and added some medallions and Oak and Acorn sprigs to some of the pieces. Unloaded a bisc kiln and made some stamp blanks to carve out. It was all wrapped up by 9PM..not bad..just another typical 9-9 day :)

We do have some problems to address though..the bisc kiln petered out last time we fired. Today we took a few minutes to check it out and so far I am baffled. I thought an element had gone because it slowed down so much, but it seems like the bottom 2/3 of the kiln isn't working. I fired it up and looked inside at about 700 degrees and only the top element was glowing. Everything else was black and cold. I can't imagine I lost a bottom element and 2 side elements at the same time, so I am not sure what to do. I thought it might be a power issue, but the relays show no visible sign of being burned out, which they usually do. So I am at a loss. I figure tomorrow I can call the manufacturer and ask for advice on troubleshooting.