Test Kilns

People often get small test kilns to test glazes before using them on a lot of work in a larger kiln.  One criticism of test kilns is that people often get very different results in their test kiln than when they do real pieces in their real kiln.  The reason behind is often because the kilns are different sizes and thus heat and cool at different rates.  Small test kilns heat and cool much faster.

The way to achieve similar results in your test and standard kiln is to use an electronic controller and program both to the same heating and cooling rates.  In other words, you slow down the test kiln to match the firing rate of the large kiln.  Presto, your results match.

Any kiln can be used as a test kiln.  Some people want very small test kilns (a half cubic foot or less), so they can fire just a few test tiles and also to keep costs down on the test kiln.  Sometimes people's main kilns are huge (15 cubic feet for example), so for them 2 cubic feet is a nice size test kiln.

Here are some popular 120v test kilns:

Olympic Hot Box kilns (.08 to .41 cubic feet)  manual or electronic

Olympic Doll kiln  (.49 cubic feet) manual or electronic

Paragon Q11A (.14 cubic feet)  manual or electronic

ConeArt 119 (.75 cubic feet) manual or electronic

Skutt 609 (0.6 cubic feet)  manual only

Cress A4HKT, A8HKT, 511/711/911 (0.4-.55 cubic feet)  manual only

L&L DL11/DHL11 (0.49 cubic feet) manual or electronic

Here are some popular 240v test kilns:

Cress E1414 (1.23 cubic feet) electronic

Paragon S66-3 (1.22 cubic feet) and S1613-3 (1.75 cubic feet)  manual or electronic

Olympic 1214 (0.86 cubic feet)  manual or electronic

Skutt 714 (1.4 cubic feet)  manual or electronic

Note that some people get manual kilns with a stand alone controller that can be moved among kilns.  

Orton has a new controller, the AF3, made just for test kilns and very reasonably priced at only $350.  .