Other Things

I don't think that I mentioned here that the kiln chose the weekend right before the pottery show to malfunction.  After determining that the problem was most likely a bad relay (the top two elements weren't heating but the others were) and getting some advice from David Snyder the Kiln Dr, I decided to try to fix it myself.

I'd run across a relay in a drawer that had this piece of tape on it. Here the tape is on my jeans where I stuck it after removing it from the relay. I almost kept it.

What I think probably happened is back in August of 2014, Allen had David come out and replace all the relays in the kiln at once.  The two that were still working at the time, got stuck in the drawer for a time when we needed to do a switch later on.

Being very careful to take one wire off the bad component and put it on the new one exactly the same way, I did the switch.  Then I tested the elements and found them all to be heating like they should be. Success!

I reloaded all the pots and fired it again Friday night.  Today was unload day. 

I was so relieved to see this big platter on the top shelf. It looked absolutely awful before and I was afraid it was ruined.  This is the big platter that I showed a few weeks ago when it was still on the wheel.  I could not be happier about how it turned out.  I didn't kill it!!!

There were lots of other things that I'm happy with too...

I have to say, I'm pretty proud.  Changing out a relay isn't all that hard to do after all.  Once again, I have Allen to thank for setting me up to be successful.