I’m getting the electrical for a kiln put in tomorrow and I’m pretty stoked. I’ve been doing pottery on and off for the last couple of years now and one of the bottlenecks has always been not being able to do my own firings.

I particularly like to test my own glazes and experimenting with stuff like that is hard to do in a community kiln. I’d feel so guilty if something happened and I ruined someone else’s piece, so I’ve been looking forward to doing my own firing.

Anyway, the problem now is deciding what kiln to get. My initial idea was just go get a Skutt KMT-1027-3. It’s expensive but I’m sure it would just work. (Price: ~$5000)

But I am kind of hacky too and I love a good electronics project, so I’m toying with the idea of getting a KilnSitter model of the 1027 and putting together my own controller with a Raspberry Pi. I would love to be able to control my kiln with some open source software from my phone like I can do with my 3D printers using Octoprint. (Price: ~$1500)

Then there is the question of whether or not the 1027 is too much kiln for me in the first place. It’s quite large and I am not a fast producer so it would probably take me a while to fill the kiln unless I was doing a lot of large objects or platters. But I like the ability to do these if I want to, so I don’t want to limit myself with a kiln that is too small. (Price: ~$3000)

There’s also one guy asking for $3500 for a used Skutt KM (non-touch) 1027 and I think he’s asking too much for a used kiln but it is cheaper than the brand new models and does include kiln furniture. So that’s another route. (~Price : ~$3500)

Any tips about which route I should take?

Edit: Just an update about what I ended up doing. I decided to get an L&L E23T kiln from Craigslist that the seller bought new but never fired due to life circumstances.

So it was basically brand new. The size is comparable and it still ended up costing me around $5k but also included a lot of the kiln furniture, a mobile stand, and the kiln has a lot more features than the one I was originally looking at. All those add ons would have probably cost another 1k at least and the purchase ended up helping a nice elderly woman come up with cash she needed for a relocation closer to family.

I do feel like I maybe bit off more kiln capacity than I can chew. With the size of this kiln I can see me doing like maybe only a handful of firings a year since I’m not a very productive potter. I may do a kilnshare in the future though to help out local potters in my area to keep it getting used though.