A furnace door in Seattle taught me to stop rushing the heat-up

I was helping a friend fire up his new glory hole at a studio in Ballard last month, and we got impatient. We cranked the gas up way too fast trying to hit 2100 degrees. The whole thing started groaning, and a hairline crack shot across the door's ceramic fiber blanket in about ten seconds. My friend just looked at me and said, 'Well, that's a $200 lesson.' Now I add at least an extra hour to my schedule for any major heat ramp. Anyone else have a hard rule they learned the expensive way?

3 comments

3 Comments

james_ramirez27d ago

@troy_scott bet he's never made THAT mistake with a cracked anvil.

sean_walker4524d ago

But is spending an extra hour babying a heat-up really necessary when most modern furnaces have thermal controllers that prevent this exact thing? A $200 mistake on a DIY build isn't exactly a universal rule for everyone working with decent gear. Maybe the real lesson is just buying a proper kiln controller instead of blaming the process.

troy_scott27d ago

That sound of ceramic cracking is pure panic. Makes you wonder how many old school blacksmiths learned that lesson from a cracked anvil or forge lining.