My studio's furnace went out right before a big custom order

Last Thursday, the main furnace in my Portland shop dropped to 900 degrees while I was prepping a set of six custom goblets. I had to scramble to move everything to my smaller glory hole to finish the work, which totally threw off my timing. Has anyone else had a major equipment failure during a deadline, and what's your backup plan?

4 comments

4 Comments

paige1662mo ago

Ugh that's the worst feeling, isn't it? My old kiln's controller fried right as a bisque load was finishing once. I had to babysit it with a pyrometer for hours, manually turning it up like every ten minutes. Total nightmare. Makes you want to cry a little lol.

jessem592mo ago

I used to think backup plans were overkill, but a blown kiln element during a holiday rush changed my mind. What's your worst equipment fail story?

oliver8552mo ago

That "babysit it with a pyrometer" story from @paige166 is why I keep a spare motor for my wheel now.

wade_kelly774d ago

Oh man, that "babysit it with a pyrometer" story hit close to home. I had a similar thing happen with my old electric kiln a few years back. The relays stuck open during a glaze firing of like 15 mugs for a holiday show. I ended up having to sit there with a thermometer and a stopwatch, manually flipping the breaker every ten minutes for the last three hours. Idk why I thought that would work, but I was desperate. It actually held temp pretty steady somehow, but I was so stressed I couldn't even enjoy the batch when they came out fine. Made me wonder how many people have done something janky like that just to save an order.