My wife is getting into pottery. She has begun throwing stuff on a wheel, and is getting pretty good at it. However, in our area, getting access to a kiln is a pain, so I'd like to buy her one. I don't want to break the bank, but I can probably spend around $1000, give or take a couple hundred. That's the max...if there's a way to do this for less, I'm all ears.

I don't know a lot about all this stuff, so you'll have to bear with me...but from what she tells me she is doing bisque pottery, not raku, and it needs to heat to at least "cone 6" (2269 °F). It doesn't have to be huge as she's not making massive stuff, but I don't want her to be limited to to doll-sized cups and saucers, either.

Options I've considered are DIY (which is tough, because although I'm pretty handy, I know absolutely nothing about kilns), propane, and electric. I don't currently have any 220 drops available, so I'd have to add a box in my garage and run a new 220 circuit if the one we get runs on 220. 110v would obviously be a lot easier, but I know stuff like this typically isn't at it's best on 110. Propane would be the easiest, but I'm not even sure if that's a thing when you get up to these temps.

If there are any potters out there with advice to give, I'd greatly appreciate it!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 92fstech,

Check with your Insurance Agent. Kilns may panic him. I lived in an apartment above a pottery shop and could not get renters insurance due to the kilns. Their operation was obviously larger in scale than what you are shooting for, but a check with your agent may be a good idea.
Fun Fact: The apartment actually did explode with my ass in it. Ironically, the kilns did not cause the pop!

How about contacting a local pottery shop? They might rent space in their kiln for you to use, or be able to guide you in what you're trying to get.

Not a potter but I have a bit of experience through friends and family. Most of the decent size home use kilns will be 240V and ~50A. They do make 120V kilns that go to cone 6 but they a pretty limited size wise. Skutt and Paragon are 2 of the more common names. A new ~50A kiln would start at $2,300 and will have electric controls and timers that make the firing process a lot easier. A new 20A kiln would start at ~$1600.

There are normally 5 or 6 used kilns for sale around me at any given time, most of them will be older with manual controls between $250-500. Normally pretty easy to look up the info from the name plate to see if it will meet your needs. They aren’t to bad to work on electrically but if the fire bricks are damaged it’s probably not worth messing with.

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Check with your Insurance Agent. Kilns may panic him.

Huh. That may end the project before it begins. Your exploding apartment story sounds entertaining, though! My plan was to operate it outside, and plug it in right where the power enters the garage on a very short, heavy gauge drop....but I know logic doesn't go far with insurance types. My premium is currently affected by our fireplace, which has no insert and has never been used.

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How about contacting a local pottery shop? They might rent space in their kiln for you to use, or be able to guide you in what you're trying to get.

Been done. The ones she's talked to haven't been very receptive, and they're pretty far away and inconvenient to get to. Plus with the process she's doing, everything has to be fired twice, so it would become a real PITA.

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A new ~50A kiln would start at $2,300 and will have electric controls and timers that make the firing process a lot easier. A new 20A kiln would start at ~$1600.

Yeah, that's about what I'm seeing. And that's too much. I've looked at used ones, and I'm open to going that route...I can fix most things, but with these I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. In pictures, I see coils and bricks...looks almost like a dryer. I've fixed our ancient dryer more than once when the coil went out...is it similar in concept? And can you get parts?

Anybody have any experience with a propane or natural gas unit...or building your own outdoor kiln with brick?

The Exploding Apartment was interesting. Came close to snuffing me.

Well that's not good. Glad it didn't!

Lots of information here:

http://www.jlpottery.com/kiln-construction

https://www.peterevanspottery....ilding-a-kiln-part-1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...esktop&v=t692w4byVrw

Go big or go home. Definitely 220V. Imagine drying clothes with a little stackable 120V dryer.

The thing about kilns is that you can make a sellable product. Before you know it, she'll be hitting one farm market a month, filing Schedule C, and everything will be a deduction.

Back in HS, clay products would explode if there was air in the clay.
At least that's what we were told, but someone else stated things were being fired too hot.

Who knows...

I’m glad to hear you’re planning on having the kiln outside.
About 5 years ago we built a beautiful home for a doctor and his wife who was a full time potter. Part of the design was to have a kiln room inside the house and the things we had to do to make that room fireproof and to some extent bombproof was insane. He said what ever it takes to make her happy so we were glad to oblige…but the room requirements cost over $10,000…

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Originally posted by YooperSigs:

The Exploding Apartment was interesting. Came close to snuffing me.

And now, for the rest of the story?

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Originally posted by 46and2:
Lots of information here:

http://www.jlpottery.com/kiln-construction

https://www.peterevanspottery....ilding-a-kiln-part-1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...esktop&v=t692w4byVrw

Thanks. While the first two links were far larger than anything we have in mind, the last one is interesting. Not quite hot enough for what we're going for, but conceptually interesting.

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m glad to hear you’re planning on having the kiln outside.

Yeah. No way is this thing going in the house!

I cannot speak to quality etc.

I see Kilns all the time on craigslist and facebook marketplace. I bought mine for about $600 and I am converting it to a heat treat oven. The kiln new sells for over 2k. It is just an idea.

and yes, it is 220v. and 50a.

The Exploding Apartment tale is lengthy, so apology for a long read:
In the early 80s I moved into what was the most awesome apartment I have ever lived in. Hand made oak baseboards, cabinets, doors and a gorgeous floor to ceiling glassed in oak etagere in the front entrance. 35 foot long hallway which I converted into a .22LR gallery shooting setup. An actual oak paneled den with functional fireplace. Ritzy! The apartment was on the upper floor of a concrete block constructed commercial building, which in my childhood was the local hardware store. The current owner had divided the ground floor into his HVAC business which took up about a third of the building. A pottery shop with multiple kilns took up the front facing street side of the building. The shop had two huge glass windows that faced the street and the owners cat would lay in the windows and sun himself. Taking up the back corner of the building was a welding / fabrication shop run by a dude who primarily made race car components.
The place was a firetrap, but I was too stupid to figure that out.
It was an ass freezing day in the winter and I had worked midnights. I had a cast iron and brass antique bed that must have weighed 250 pounds and I and my two cats were all snuggy in it. In the late afternoon, I was awakened by this heavy bed, with me and the cats in it, being flung across the room and crashing into the wall. Last I saw of the cats they were hauling ass out of the room. I located a flannel shirt and jeans and being a good policeman, I called 9-1-1 to report what I thought was a truck hitting the building. My dispatcher, a genteel motherly type, said "get your fucking ass out of there, we are sending a full fire response to you"! Thats effective dispatch instructions! By the time I hung up, thick black smoke was filling the room. By the time I found my shoes, I was under the smoke cloud on my hands and knees. The trip down the long hallway was done with me on my belly and the smoke just above my body. When I reached the stairs, I finally hit clear air and was able to reach the street. The VFD had arrived but with no city water in place at that time, their tankers couldnt even make a dent in the fire. Just after dark, the FD contacted a local construction company and had them bring in a bulldozer to knock down the walls so they could attack the fire burning in the building interior.
Total loss for everyone involved. My possessions afterward consisted of a flannel shirt, underwear, shoes and jeans. I now sleep with my socks on every night so at least I have them on should I be in another fire or explosion. The two cats died in the fire.
Fun fact: The pottery shop cat was snoozing in the window when the explosion took place and it blew him through the glass and out into the parking lot. He was recovered two days later sitting on the rubble as if waiting for the shop to reopen. He was cut in in several places but only lost about half of his nine lives.
Another Fun Fact: The office manager for my insurance agent (whom I later married) was in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store and facing the building when the explosion took place. She said she saw the roof lift up off the building far enough that she could see daylight under it before it fell back in.
Cause of the pop: Lining the back wall of the welding shop were multiple large tanks of welding gases. The landlord had a work crew installing shelving on his side of the welding shop wall and they were using a nail gun to put the shelves up with. The nail gun load was overly powerful for the job and punched the nails through the wall just enough to puncture the welding gas tanks. The gas began to slowly fill up the spaces in the building and eventually reached the furnace. When the gas reached the pilot light for the furnace, boom!
The Fire Marshall later told me the two big glass windows in the pottery shop blowing out helped to vent the pressure of the blast. Otherwise, the weakest part of the building was the floor of my apartment and without the pressure vent, it might have destroyed the floor and dropped me into the fire!
Good news: No one was hurt. I got a minor settlement from the landlords insurance company which got me back on my feet. but I lost stuff I could not replace. Photos of my time in the USAF, Discharge papers and HS diploma to name a few.
My Sergeant at the time (who I aged greatly, poor man) was on scene and when he saw me he said "this confirms exactly what I have always seen you demonstrate: Its better to be lucky than smart"!
And thats the tale of the Exploding Apartment.

^^^ Holy crap ! You probably lost 2 or 3 of your 9 loves on that one! It's no wonder you couldn't get insurance...pottery kilns, welding gasses, and an "indoor gun range" all in the same building....I wouldn't have insured it, either lol!

Good story... glad you are lucky!

Thanks! It was luck. The range was a portable setup so my insurance guy never saw it. And the kilns he was in panic about? Weren't even on! The shop was closed but due to open in the evening for a pottery class.
One Other Fun Fact: The furnace was a large oil fired 1950s monster powering a hot water boiler system. For the entire building. The oil tank for it was in a utility room with fill pipes on the building exterior. It had been filled at the start of winter. 500 gallon tank sitting on a cast iron support stand. The pop possibly dislodged the tank or caused the stand to collapse, and the tank then fed heating oil to the fire.
When my landlord rebuilt the building, modern construction codes kicked in and the conditions that led to the fire were mitigated.

Used is the way to go in your price range. The newer electric kilns will go to cone 10 (more $$) the older ones are good to cone 6 and there are plenty of them around. Buy either Skutt or another maker that is still in business so that if you need parts/support they are readily available. Electric kilns are not very complicated. There are heating elements, brick insulation/support for the elements, metal case and the control panel. Most older kilns will have what is called a kiln setter which will turn itself off once the cone reaches it's temp. The newer ones will be digitally controlled and you can program the heating cycle of your choosing. In my area you can find cone 10 electric kilns that are digitally controled for $500 occasionally but they go fast.

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When my landlord rebuilt the building, modern construction codes kicked in and the conditions that led to the fire were mitigated.

I'd certainly hope so, lol. While I'm not one to always appreciate the hoops the government wants us to jump through for building stuff, that place sounded like an absolute death trap and a public menace. It's a miracle that you or somebody else didn't get killed when it went up. On the other hand, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and it makes for an awesome story!

So my wife apparently really wanted that kiln. I told her to find one and we'd buy it...and she already has. It's about an hour away, decent sized 220 unit. Comes with a bunch of extras likes cones, glazes, shelves, a wheeled stand...all for $500. Wife says there's like $300 worth of glaze alone, so that's cool (I know nothing about it). Lady said she used it a bunch last year during the covid lockdown, but now that that's over, she hasn't had time for pottery and decided to let it and all the other stuff go. So we're gonna go pick it up next week after we get home from vacation. It's an older analog unit, but from the pictures it looks to be in very good shape, and well cared for. Supposedly it "ran when parked", so hopefully it'll be plug and play.

Now I get to wire a new breaker panel and 220 outlet in the garage. Guys, this is what happens when you get carried away at the gun auction and your wife finds out!!!