The author

 I’m Peter Riley, a retired Victorian based kiln maker. I’ve been involved with kilns & furnaces, instrumentation and associated materials for over fifty years.

Some of you might know me from Riley Glass Kilns, a dedicated glass kiln business I have run since 1995; until my second retirement when I turned 84 in February 2010.

So why was this site created?

It was largely in response to questions frequently asked of me;

• why is the glass behaving this way, or how do I do this or that in my kiln, or what does this or that material do; or
• what is going to happen to the knowledge you have amassed when you retire.

In response to questions from purchasers, I wrote some notes on glass and kilnforming as part of the Owners Manual for Riley Glass Kilns GS hobby kilns. These have been expanded into the content of Advanced Kilnforming in the  Cooking Glass site.

As to the content of All about kilns, a substantial part of my working life from the 1940's has been involved with instrumentation, electrical and general engineering and with kilns and furnaces.

In the early 1970's I was Contracts Manager for an Engineering Services Company. Among the projects for which I was responsible was a heat treating furnace for the State Electricity Commission  of Victoria, the contract for which was won against stiff competition.

This involved the innovative use of lightweight ceramic fibre insulation and was among the earliest large scale uses of that material in Australia.

The unit was for the stress relief of the giant impeller wheels for the Yallourn W power station then under construction, and required precise control of process temperature to a profile somewhat similar to that needed for glass. See, most things need stress relief or annealing. Even a massage of tense muscles is a form of stress relief.

A special instrumentation and power control system was required which I designed and had built by Electrical & Chemical Engineering Pty Ltd, now ECE Fast.

For many years I was employed as Product Manager by Carborundum Resistant Materials Pty Ltd, starting there at a time when we numbered four people Australia wide and seeing it grow enormously.

I advised on the application of the vast range of refractory materials we offered, but particularly on the use of lightweight Ceramic Fibre linings. This involved industries as diverse as oil refineries, power stations, brick making, steel plants and foundries, but also potters who saw Ceramic fibre as an energy saving material which would lower their fuel costs.

Conventional practice was to use IFB or refractory castable in the lining of furnaces kilns and process heaters in industry. These all required heavy supporting structures. I was able to draw on my early experience in metal fabrication to recommend lightweight stainless steel shells for kilns; a construction method still used with large Riley top-hat kilns.

After my first retirement I was drawn back into 'harness' by glass artist daughter Maureen who wanted a glass kiln. The first unit, built on conventional front loader lines but with innovative electrical changes was nicknamed Thuggly because it was lumpy and ugly.

Observing Maureen's difficulties with firing glass in a front loader quickly led to the GS range of Top-Hat kilns (for Glass Starter); a much more sensible design. 

Since then I have been involved in making glass kilns for a range of glass artists, hobbyists and  glass production facilities all around Australia, with some going overseas.

Working out the most efficient and reliable design for kilns to fire glass, means understanding  and continuously researching changes in glass product, how it is being used by artists and also keeping abreast with technical changes in kiln materials and components.

I hope you find the website useful and wish you every success with your activity.