Making Kiln Shelves

I throw special shapes needed on the wheel.

Making kiln shelves. This didn t happen with stoneware. Making small shelves for raku firing are certainly possible but i think the cost of manufactured shelves are worth the price. Make a small fire to fire up the kiln. Neglected kiln shelves can result in flakes of kiln wash landing smack dab in the middle of a beautiful glaze surface or pots inadvertently sticking to shelves where a glaze drip once landed.

Kilns are capable of doing. Build a brick chimney or make a hole at one end so that you can insert a pipe into the hole. Kiln shelf maintenance is a much hated but very necessary part of having a kiln. It is recommended for glass artists to use corelite shelves.

This will draw the heat and smoke through the fireplace and away from the kiln for uniform and effective heating. Alumina is highly refractory meaning it melts at a super high temperature cone 42 which makes it a good material for making kiln shelves. I found that without kiln wash my grolleg porcelain pieces stuck to the shelves. Put the pots inside the ware chamber and stack more bricks at the top to create a roof.

If you have a potter s wheel you can make your own kiln shelves. High alumina kiln shelves are the beige coloured shelves that are sold with most electric kilns nowadays. Kiln shelves are brought in from mexico and venezuela and are made of a fragile material that may contain small chips.