ConeTrue Kiln Lab turns every firing into a repeatable recipe: ramp-and-hold schedules, real heatwork math, cone reference charts, kiln maintenance history and a searchable log of every load you have ever fired.
Most kiln controllers remember one program and forget everything else. ConeTrue Kiln Lab remembers the whole story — which shelf held which pot, what the ramp actually looked like, how much heatwork the load received, and why a glaze that worked in March crawled in October. Everything lives in one structured place instead of a notebook covered in clay dust.
Build the schedule, estimate total firing time and energy, and check that your ramp rates are inside a safe range for the clay body and thickness you are firing.
Segment timeline, expected temperature at each moment, hold countdowns and a place to type in what the controller and the witness cones are really showing.
Rate the result, attach notes per shelf position, and compare firings side by side to find the exact variable that changed the outcome.
The app is organised around four workspaces that share the same data, so a change in one place updates every related record instead of leaving stale copies behind.
Unlimited segments with rate in degrees per hour, target temperature and hold time. Duplicate a segment, reorder it, or invert a cooling stage in one gesture.
Cone equivalents are computed from time and temperature together, so a slow climb to a lower peak is correctly shown as the same maturity as a fast climb to a higher one.
Self-supporting and large cones from 022 to 14, with the three standard heating rates side by side, in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Recipes with material percentages, batch scaling to any dry weight, application notes, layering order and the firing range each glaze is happy in.
Describe each shelf and each position, then link results to a spot — perfect for finding the cold corner or the hot zone near the elements.
Every completed firing is archived with its schedule snapshot, so editing a program later never rewrites what happened in the past.
Enter kiln power and local tariff to get a per-firing cost estimate and a running monthly total, useful when pricing finished work.
Log element changes, thermocouple replacements, brick repairs and kiln wash reapplications with automatic reminders based on firing count.
Export your whole lab as a single readable file and import it on another device. Your data belongs to you and never depends on our servers.
A schedule in ConeTrue Kiln Lab is more than a list of numbers. Each segment carries a purpose, a tolerance and an explanation, so anyone in a shared studio can load and start the same program without asking what "candle" meant.
| Segment | Rate | Target | Hold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Candle | 60 °C/h | 120 °C | 2 h 00 |
| Burnout | 110 °C/h | 600 °C | — |
| Climb | 150 °C/h | 1100 °C | — |
| Approach | 75 °C/h | 1222 °C | 0 h 15 |
| Crash | −250 °C/h | 980 °C | — |
| Soak | −25 °C/h | 900 °C | 1 h 30 |
Ceramic maturity depends on how long the ware stayed hot, not on the single highest number the display showed. ConeTrue Kiln Lab keeps both views in front of you and explains the difference between them in plain language.
After unloading, record how each witness cone bent — standing, quarter, half, touching or fully melted. The app converts that into an effective cone value and compares it with the controller reading, then suggests a correction offset for the next firing of the same load type.
The full reference range with the three common heating rates, plus a short note on what each range is typically used for.
| Cone | 60 °C/h | 150 °C/h | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08 | 945 °C | 955 °C | Low-fire glaze |
| 06 | 991 °C | 999 °C | Bisque, majolica |
| 04 | 1050 °C | 1060 °C | Earthenware |
| 6 | 1222 °C | 1241 °C | Mid-fire stoneware |
| 10 | 1285 °C | 1305 °C | Reduction stoneware |
Type a recipe in percentages once, then ask for 2 kg, 500 g or a single test batch. Water, suspender and colourant additions are scaled alongside the base and rounded to weights your scale can actually show.
Plan line blends and triaxial sets, then record thickness, application method and result for each tile. Every tile keeps a link back to the firing that produced it.
Store shrinkage, absorption, recommended range and slaking behaviour for each body so you never guess whether a new box is safe at cone 6.
Mark ingredients that need dust protection or careful handling, and keep your own studio safety notes attached to the recipes that use them.
Find any recipe, firing or tile by name, material, cone range, surface or tag. Search works instantly and entirely on the device.
Pin the handful of programs and glazes you use weekly, and use colour tags for projects, commissions or class groups.
Name, type, chamber volume, power, number of shelves and the controller you use. Add as many kilns as your studio has.
Start from a preset, adjust ramps and holds, and save it with a clear name that says what it is for.
Record what went in, on which shelf, with which glaze, and where the witness cones sit.
Enter the observed cones and results, then let the comparison view show what to change next time.
Community and school studios can keep a single agreed set of programs, so a student and a resident artist fire the same way. Export the library, hand it over, and everyone starts from identical settings without a subscription or a login.
Large tap targets, high contrast in a dim kiln room, a dark theme that does not blind you at 2 a.m., and screens that keep the important number visible while you scroll.
The app opens and works immediately. There is no sign-up, no email confirmation and no profile to maintain.
We do not collect analytics about your recipes, schedules or usage patterns, and there are no third-party advertising components.
The backup file is a plain, readable document you can store anywhere. Deleting the app removes the data with it, so keep a copy first.
Questions, bug reports, feature requests and studio-specific setup help all go to the same inbox — and they are answered by the person who builds the app, not by a script.
tillerslappyk67887@gmail.comTo get help faster, include your device model, the app version, the name of the kiln profile involved and a short description of what you expected to happen. If it is about a specific firing, mentioning the schedule name and target cone usually lets us reproduce it on the first try.
No. It is a planning, calculation and logging tool. It never connects to kiln hardware and never sends commands, so it cannot start, stop or alter a firing. You enter the program into your controller as usual, and the app keeps the reasoning, the history and the numbers around it. This also means it is safe to use with any kiln, including manual ones with no electronics at all.
No. All calculations, references and records work fully offline. Kiln rooms often have poor reception, so the app was built to be dependable in a basement or a converted garage. Nothing is uploaded, and no feature is hidden behind a server check.
The cone equivalents follow the published standard bending temperatures for self-supporting cones at the common heating rates, and intermediate rates are interpolated. Treat the result as a well-informed estimate: real kilns have zones, drafts and ageing thermocouples. That is exactly why the app also asks you to record witness cones — over a few firings, the correction offset it builds makes the estimate match your own kiln closely.
Yes. Switch units at any time in settings and every schedule, chart and log entry is converted instantly. Ramp rates change with the unit as well, so a rate you entered in degrees Celsius per hour is shown correctly in degrees Fahrenheit per hour rather than being copied blindly.
Not if you export first. Use the backup option to produce a single file, move it to the new device by whatever method you prefer, and import it there. The import restores schedules, kilns, glaze recipes, test tiles and the full firing history, keeping the links between them intact.
Yes, by sharing an exported library file. Each device keeps its own copy, which means nobody can accidentally overwrite the studio's master programs while experimenting. When the shared library is updated, export it again and re-import on the other devices; existing firing records are preserved and only the shared entries are refreshed.
Write to the support address with a short description and, if possible, a screenshot. Reproducible bugs are prioritised and usually go out in the next update. Feature requests are collected and grouped: when several potters ask for the same workflow, it moves to the top of the roadmap. You will get a reply either way, including an honest "not planned" when something falls outside what the app is meant to do.