Kiln Shelf Repair and "ITC"

[Darrin Strosnider]

I have a kiln shelf I got from a ceramics user and there were little spatters of glaze all over it which she did not clean off between firings. As a result, the glaze ate through the shelf primer and started to eat into the shelf.

I very carefully dug (or Dremeled) the glaze out, which of course left small "divits" in the shelf. None of them are any deeper than 1/8", and most are less than 1/16".

I searched the archives on the old board and found a lot of hits on the subject of minor kiln shelf repair. The popular solution seems to be to make a thicker mix of the BE shelf primer and sort of "trowel" it into the divits, sand it smooth, and then apply even coats of primer as usual.

One thing that piqued my interest was a product people were referring to as "ITC". The discussions didn't ever seem to come to a conclusion as to whether this stuff is any good or not.

Sooooo, after all that long winded explanation, I'm curious about any experience people may have had with ITC for kiln shelf repair.

Thanks in advance!
-Darrin

[Barbara Cashman]

Since we use powdered separator, a hole is filled with the powder before sifting the remainder over the board. My fiber boards get a lot of abuse, so there is a lot of 'spackling' of dry powder. If you use the kiln wash wet, I think you could probably come up with a solution based on the spackling theory. - Barbara