Interminable

[offcntr]

Electric kiln. A device that turns electricity to heat in an insulating shell so as to fire pottery without any actual fire. Can be used for bisque, low or medium fire glazing. Most of them are made of rings of soft brick held in place in a stainless steel jacket. Kiln elements run in grooves around the inner surface, linked through holes in the wall of the kiln with the power supply and controls. Stacked rings are wired together, along with a brick slab bottom and lid, to make a kiln. Mine has twelve 9" bricks in the circumference, and is three 9" rings high. This is generally called a 1227 kiln, from manufacturer Skutt's numbering system. (Mine was actually made by Olympic.)

Elements. Coils of nichrome or kanthal (high temperature metal alloys) wire that glow red hot when you run high voltage current through them. Think of the glowing wires inside your toaster, if your toaster was big enough to climb into. Not that I recommend that.

Three-heat switch. A rotary switch for high voltage with three settings--low, medium and high. In addition to kilns, some vintage electric stoves used to use them, though now they all use continuous switches. Pity. If there were more demand, there might be more manufacturers and the price wouldn't be so high.

Kiln sitter. A Rube Goldberg affair--excuse me, an electromechanical device--that switches off a kiln when a certain combination of time and temperature is reached. A pyrometric cone is supported on two metal prongs inside the kiln, with a third prong resting on top. The third prong is on a pivot, with a hook on the other end holding onto a weight that's hinged over the "on" button. When the kiln gets hot enough, the cone begins to melt. As the cone deforms, the inner end of the prong goes down, the outer, hooked end goes up, the weight drops, the button pops out, the little cage slides down the pole and traps the mouse--wait, where was I?--and the kiln turns off. Because this is self-evidently an infallible device, the manufacturers eventually added a limit timer to shut the kiln off in case the sitter failed to do so.