The Kitiki Mini-Kiln is a low-cost, small-scale, jewellery kiln that can use a regular mains socket. It's a 1000°C, four sided, rectangular, ceramic-fibre, front-opening kiln, with an easy-to-use, 4-key ramp hold digital controller.

The Kitiki Mini-Kiln is the most popular minikiln in the UK. It's ideal for your home, craft workshop, jewellery studio, or arts centre running jewellery courses. It weighs just 6kg, so is easy to take to craft fairs, demonstrations, and exhibitions.

The Kitiki Mini-Kiln is suitable for small-scale work: Art Clay, PMC, and BronzClay metal clays, Accent Gold, Image Transfer Solution, Metal Clay Veneer, decals, painting china, dichroic glass, glass bead annealing, glass fusing, enamelling, and mixed-media jewellery.

The Kitiki MiniKiln, made for Cherry Heaven, is sometimes called an Art Clay kiln, a craft kiln, an enamelling kiln, a fusing kiln, a jewellery kiln, a hobby kiln, a metal clay kiln, an Odak kiln, a PMC kiln, a Prometheus Kiln, a Prometheus Pro-1 Kiln, a SilverClay kiln, or a small kiln.

Compared to the Uhlig U5 and U15 kilns and similar models, the Kitiki MiniKiln has a higher maximum temperature and a ramp-hold digital controller: it's a versatile kiln not just a hot-box.

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The Kitiki Mini Kiln.

All programmable kilns work in the same way: the thermocouple checks the internal temperature regularly and tells the programmer to switch the elements on or off to control the heating or cooling rate.

When the target temperature is reached, the elements are switched off. However, residual heat in the firing chamber allows the internal temperature to overshoot the target temperature briefly before starting to fall back.

This is more noticeable at low temperatures than at high temperatures. For example: 300°C will probably overshoot to 320°C whereas 800°C will probably only overshoot to 810°C before starting to fall back. Take this into account if you're working with temperature-critical materials or processes.

During the hold-time, with the elements still off, the internal temperature falls. Although the programmer will soon switch the elements back on, the firing chamber will initially absorb some of the new heat before the temperature recovers. The continual switching of the elements on and off causes the internal temperature to cycle around the target temperature.

The actual temperature of your work will be affected, slightly, by its position on the kiln shelf, the vertical spacing of any stacked shelves, and its nearness to the elements, a lid, a door, a bead door, a window, or a peephole.

Remember that glass needs radiant heat and will fuse, sag, or slump better on one shelf than between stacked shelves.

Kiln doors and lids are not meant to be a perfect fit otherwise, at high temperatures, there'd be no room for expansion and the door could stick and the ceramic-fibre or firebricks could crack.

Eventually, with normal use, kilns discolour slightly, inside and outside, and some firebricks might develop hairline cracks. Remember, your kiln is a robust, versatile, red-hot tool: not an ornament.

Working successfully with a kiln involves careful research, planned experiment, and repeated testing. It's important to learn how to creatively use unexpected effects, as things that work for your friends or teachers might not work in the same way for you. So, keep a firing log:

Buy a durable notebook. On a new page for every firing, draw a diagram of the shelf and the position of your work on the shelf. Put a few scraps at different places on the shelf to learn how things react. Describe the material, the shape of your work, the firing cycle, and the end result.

A kiln log is vital if you're experimenting with temperature-sensitive materials, or working with coloured dichroic glasses, enamels, or glazes, and a skilled artist will use the log to advantage to re-create effects.

The Kitiki Mini-Kiln is a 1000°C, four-sided, square, ceramic-fibre, front-opening kiln, with an easy-to-use, 4-key digital controller. The Kitiki MiniKiln is the most popular small kiln in the UK.

The Kitiki Mini-Kiln is suitable for small-scale work: Art Clay, PMC, and BronzClay metal clays, Accent Gold, Metal Clay Veneer, applying decals, painting china, dichroic glass, glass bead annealing, glass fusing, enamelling, and mixed-media jewellery.

The UK kiln is rated at 230V 700W, so can use a regular mains socket. It's small enough to use in your home, school, craft workshop, jewellery studio, or course venue, as it only weighs about 6Kg.

The outer steel case measures 224mm x 244mm x 274mm, and is slotted for air circulation: so it keeps cool. The door is hinged on the left, opens 90°, and has a small vent-hole for processes that release fumes. The vent also serves as a peephole: it's not a glass window.

The ceramic firing chamber, enclosed in an inner steel case, measures 113mm x 135mm x 66mm internally, and heats from the top, sides, and bottom, with the fast-firing elements safely embedded in the ceramic fibre.

The MiniKiln doesn't have a programmer. However, the controller allows you to adjust the maximum temperature, and the heating and cooling rate.

The recommended furniture kit for the Kitiki MiniKiln, included in the price, consists of one soft ceramic-fibre cloth 100mm x 120mm x 20mm for Art Clay, PMC, and delicate jewellery, and one hard ceramic-fibre shelf 100mm x 120mm x 10mm for china paint, enamels, and glass. You can buy extra shelf kits in the on-line shop.
For enamelling and glass fusing, you'll need to put kiln paper on the shelf to stop anything sticking: it's simpler and cleaner to use than glass separator. You can buy shelf paper in the on-line shop.

Although there's cross-over, 1000°C front-opening ceramic-fibre kilns that heat and cool quickly, such as the Mini-Kiln, are preferred for Art Clay and PMC metal clays, dichroic glasses, enamelling, and mixed-media jewellery.

Ceramics, porcelain, pottery, and stoneware, need 1290°C firebrick kilns that heat and cool evenly, such as those in the Paragon Caldera, FireFly, and Janus series. Firebrick kilns are better suited to continual high temperatures.

The Mini-Kiln elements are embedded in ceramic fibre, an important safety feature if you like to open the door whilst you work. However, never get careless: kilns are very hot and connected to the mains.

It's very important to understand that the Mini-Kiln has a controller, not a programmer. There are limitations, although you may be perfectly happy with what it can do rather than unhappy with what it can't.

The MiniKiln has a smaller firing chamber than that of the SC2, so you can't fill three shelves with twenty-four pieces of jewellery: just four or five average things on the floor of the firing chamber, on a ceramic-fibre cloth or shelf. And it heats to 1000°C, not 1095°C.

The Mini-Kiln door opens 90° so, unless the kiln has cooled completely, you need to careful not to burn your hand taking pieces out. The SC-2 door opens 180°.

The SC-2 programmer allows you to set up, and re-use, four accurate drying, heating, holding, and cooling sequences: and do something else whilst the sequence is running. A sequence can consist of up to eight segments.
A segment is one step in a sequence: often the time it takes to reach a target temperature. For example: a segment could take 50 minutes to reach 650°C, could hold at 850°C for 12 minutes, or could cool down over two hours.

The Mini Kiln controller does not offer sequences and segments: it heats to a set temperature and stays there until you turn it off. For most people doing small-scale work, that's enough, although it helps if you buy a small digital timer to remind you that time's up. You can buy a digital timer in the on-line shop.

A Ramp Function can be enabled, or disabled, using a set of key presses described in the manual. A Ramp Function lets you choose how fast the kiln heats up or cools down. For example: it can heat up to 800°C over 75 minutes, or cool down from 960°C to room temperature over 180 minutes.

The on-line shop includes kilns, shelf paper, programmers, ceramic blocks, ceramic cloths, digital pyrometers, reminder timers, fire extinguishers, glare-resistant glasses, heat-resistant gloves, kiln shelves, kiln tables, and other tools and accessories. Alternatively, visit the Cherry Heaven Shop in Corfe Castle village.

Cherry Heaven is an EU distributor for Paragon Kilns made in the US, Advance Kilns made in Canada, Efco Kilns made in Germany, Kitiki Mini-Kilns made in Turkey, and UltraLite Kilns made in the US.

Cherry Heaven is a UK distributor for Art Clay made by Aida Chemical Industries in Japan and BronzClay made in the US, and an EU distributor for AccentGold For Silver paint and Metal Clay Veneer, both made in the US.

The Kitiki Studio is an Art Clay UK distributor, an on-line shop, and a learning centre with three Aida-certified teachers. It provides the full Art Clay range: 650 silver clay, original silver, slow dry, slow tarnish, paste, oil paste, overlay paste, syringe clay, paper clay, gold clay, gold paste, gold foil, and cork clay.

The Kitiki Studio on-line shop includes electric kilns, kiln shelves, kiln paper, precision jewellery and craft tools, pliers and cutters, rotary tumblers, magnetic polishers, shot, grit, mini-drills, mandrels, triblets, UK ring guages, files, rollers and spacers, texture sheets, moulds, stones, findings, abrasives, glues, safety equipment, and other tools and accessories.

The Kitiki Studio provides a comprehensive Art Clay educational programme as classes, masterclasses, workshops, and Art Clay Level 1 and Level 2 teacher-certification courses, as well as classes for related products and techniques.

The Kitiki Studio, Electric Kilns, The Art Clay Club, Cherry Heaven, and SilverClay, provide the definitive UK on-line Art Clay knowledge-base and an unrivalled range of clays, kilns, tools, materials, and courses.

The Kitiki Studio is committed to the Art Clay world, so Art Clay is not just a secondary product within an existing polymer clay, glass, or craft business.