Kiln Shopping~

The opportunity to buy a used kiln has recently come up....a used GAS fired kiln.

Exciting!!

You  may recall that I recently wrote a post about my electric kiln. One major advantage with electric kilns is they are way cheaper (the kiln itself)  and way easier to fire than gas, wood or other fuel fired kilns. HOWEVER, what you get with gas (the fuel kind...) is the ability to do reduction firing. Hear the ohh's and ahh's in the background?!

Reduction firing is well explained here (credit to John Hesselberth), so I will not digress from my post title to explain it.

Let's stay focused; I am shopping~

So far the information I have is this: The kiln for sale is 15 yrs. old. It is a duel burner gas kiln- Bailey 38/24 (it's big!).  It is currently in a storage unit about 60 miles from my house. It comes with kiln furniture and most of the exhaust and venting stuff.

I contacted Bailey Pottery and they sent me an extensive packet of information on what to look for when purchasing a used kiln...very helpful.

Bailey Kiln

I also asked Bailey to give me an estimate for what it would cost to purchase a smaller, new gas kiln. My thinking is- if I could buy a kiln right now what size would I really shop for? So, the estimate for the Bailey 18/12- fully outfitted- would cost a bit more than double what the used kiln is advertised for. The new kiln also comes with  technical support (a cost factored into the price of the kiln) and more time- as in years- with the kiln. Shipping and venting are additional  costs- varying as to location.

With a used kiln- tech. support is $100 per hour or $60 a half hour.

Larger used kiln, I can afford now....smaller new kiln would require a loan...either kiln, I would have to learn how to fire it. (shhhh! Don't tell, but I have never fired a gas kiln in my life!!)

Either way, I long for a gas kiln. Ugh, what to do?

Any advice out there?

tiny picture of a bailey kiln!