Matte Black

Well I took a gamble on the matte black in the Electric Kiln Ceramics book. I got a few pots in the little kiln, two decent sized vases and an oval serving dish. The big deal for me is that I'm not liking the cone 6 firings. I should say the 818P isn't liking the cone 6. The envirovent slows down the cone 6 firings to a two day process no matter what I do. My only recourse is to fire with out the envirovent on. This time I tired to do that, but the red earthenware was gassing off so badly I couldn't see my witness cones. I decided to just pop it on for a second to clear it just to check the cones. I cleaned out the atmosphere at the end real well for a soak of 50 minutes. It was really a slow cool though as the kiln began to cool off slowly with the dials set to low. Can't wait to see if I've got a glaze that I like. I'm kicking myself for not putting at least one of the iron red samples in this load. Oh well, next time.