Introduction and Burnout Kiln Question

Jewelry Discussion
1

Greetings all,

My name is Tim. I have been reading for a few days on this list.
I am generally interested in lost wax casting, metal smithing,
and historical jewelry construction.

My question is this; after six years of using my burnout kiln
(aprox. twice a month) it took a vacation on me while I was at
the peak of the cycle. I took the back off of it after it cooled
to find the white power wire had burnt completely off of the temp
control dial and burned about four inches of the insulation off
of the wire. Is this common? Did I burn out the switch or do
these wires just get sick of the resistence and heat up? The kiln
is a Satelite.

Thanks in advance.

        Timothy
2

Did I burn out the switch or do these wires just get sick of the
resistence and heat up? The kiln is a Satelite.

If what you are saying is, the line wire going into the control
unit burn’t out. Then it is probably caused by increased
resistance where it connects at the inlet terminal. This terminal
connection commonly goes bad and increases in resistance and
starts heating out along the input wire and finally burning it
out. Bad connections meaning loose connections have high
resistance that produce heat which leads to oxidation of the
heated wire and increasing resistance and increasing heat. Have a
electrician check it out.