Hi everyone, I have a few pieces coming up that will be in need of kiln stilts. A few questions:
Do all kiln stilts use wire? If no, how do I decide if I need the kind with wire?
Are they difficult to make or should I just buy them?
Are they reusable, or at least as reusable as a cookie?
We have a mold that can be slip-cast for kiln stilts. You can add wire (preferably Kanthal wire) to those before you fire the piece. That depends on how over-glazed your pieces are.
There are ones you can buy that are a hexagonal bed-of nails. Less issue balancing your items on those.
Generally speaking, the tripod style with metal points is designed for low-fire. The metal seems to be nichrome, which has a life cycle when you heat it to Cone 6. We had inherited a bunch of those when we bought one of the kilns. I started tossing them out because you couldn’t tell how many times they’d bee fired, and they were collapsing under pieces and creating a mess.
So, if you bought brand new, they’d be good for a limited number of firings, but might collapse at some point.
edit – let me know if you want to slip-cast some kiln stilts.
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