Firing china

[chuka_lis]

Firing china paint isn't as difficult or critical as firing clay because the clay body and glaze arent really going through major physical and chemical changes..

 It is easy is to use  the ramp fire program and set it so that the first ramp fires as quickly as possible  ( 9999 degrees/hour) and then set the end temp for whatever cone you want to fire to . ( There is also a cone chart in that same thread on the forum ...  cone  017 is about 1380 F*, 015 is about 1480 F*.... Its not super critical.)
One ramp, as fast as it will fire... The small  Paragon Home Artist kiln takes about 50 minutes, the large Olympic takes about 2 1/2    It is not critical to vent the kiln anymore ... unless you firing lusters or gold . Then  vent it till it stops smoking...   
Do make sure that the pieces aren't sitting directly on the kiln shelves. Put a stilt under them to get air flow underneath .    
When you set it to fire  at highest temperature, it still takes time.. The only thing that is happening is that the relays aren't turning on and off . The heat just goes straight up . (The relays just slow down the firing speed by turning the elements on and off ).