KilnTrail: Pottery Journal

ClearStack Apps

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About this app

Keep a record of what worked on each piece, from clay body and glaze recipe to firing and finished result. KilnTrail keeps the whole story of every pot in one place: the clay, the glaze and how it went on, the firings it came out of, and the test tile you recorded for that glaze.

THE BOARD
Track thrown or hand-built pieces through trimming, bisque, glazing and glaze firing to done, each in a column for the stage it is at. Move a piece along with one tap and add a photo at each stage, so each piece keeps a photo record from wet clay to the shelf. Search by name or form, and keep sold, gifted and broken pieces out of the way without losing them.

THE PIECE CARD
Open a finished piece and its record is all there: the photos from each stage, the clay body, each glaze with the method and number of coats, the firings it went through with cone and your schedule, your notes on how it came out, and the test tile beside the finished pot so you can compare the finished glaze with its test tile.

GLAZE RECIPES AND TEST TILES
Write a recipe the way you mix it: base materials as percentages that total 100, colourants and opacifiers as additions on top. Type the base weight of your batch and KilnTrail scales every line to a tenth of a gram. Keep versions as you adjust a recipe. Add a test tile for each clay and cone, linked to the firing it came out of, and the recipe shows them side by side.

THE KILN LOG
Log each firing with the kiln, cone, your own segments (rate, target, hold), program name, the load, the actual time and a photo of the witness cones. The schedule is drawn as a curve. Plan the next firing and get a reminder on the day. The cone picker shows Orton self-supporting cone temperatures as a reference.

MATERIALS, SALES AND REMINDERS
Keep raw materials on the shelf by weight, see what is running low, and deduct a glaze batch from your recorded stock when you mix it. Record a sale or a gift with price, date and where it went, and see totals by month in each currency. Set a reminder on a piece to check it is leather hard or to trim the foot.

PRINT AND SHARE
A piece card, a recipe card with the scaled batch and its tiles, and a firing log, each as a PDF.

YOURS, ON YOUR PHONE
Everything stays on your phone. There is no account. Back up every piece, recipe, firing and photo to one file and restore it on another phone, on every plan.

PLANS
The standard plan holds up to 30 pieces, 5 glaze recipes and one kiln, with the board, the piece card, firings, reminders and backup, and a small banner ad on the Glazes and More tabs, never on the board. Full access removes the caps and the ads and adds test tiles, the materials shelf, sales and the PDFs. You can try it for 14 days first, with no card. When a trial or plan ends, every record you made stays there to open and edit.

WHAT KILNTRAIL DOES NOT DO
KilnTrail keeps the records you enter. It does not recommend firing schedules, cones or glaze chemistry, it does not connect to or control a kiln, and kiln and glaze safety stay your responsibility. For glaze chemistry, the recipe screen links to Glazy.

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What’s new

First release. Follow each piece from throwing to the last firing, keep glaze recipes and test tiles, and log every kiln firing.