If you’ve been curious about ADVANCER® nitride bonded silicon carbide (NSiC) kiln shelves but aren’t ready to commit to a full set, ADVANCER® Cookies offer the perfect entry point. These miniature 4” round kiln shelves pack all the performance advantages of ADVANCER® into a compact, affordable format—ideal for test kilns, sample development, and getting a feel for how ADVANCER® Kiln Shelves work with your clay bodies and glazes.
What Are ADVANCER® Cookies?
ADVANCER® Cookies are 4” round NSiC shelves that bring the same ultra-thin, non-porous, high-strength material into versatile configurations. ADVANCER® Cookies measure are 1/4” thick, which is even thinner than traditional ADVANCER® shelves (5/16” thick). ADVANCER® cookies can be placed directly on cordierite kiln shelves, so you don’t need to replace your entire kiln furniture setup to benefit from ADVANCER’s glaze resistance. Use them strategically under individual pieces where glaze runs may occur and protect your cordierite shelves. They’re particularly brilliant for experimental glazes that would potentially stick to cordierite shelves causing significant clean up.
Dip Your Toes Into the World of ADVANCER® Kiln Shelves
Understandably, not everyone is ready to invest in a complete set of ADVANCER® shelves, and that’s exactly why ADVANCER® Cookies make sense. They let you experience the ADVANCER® advantage—lightweight handling, easy glaze cleanup, perfect flatness—without the upfront cost of full size shelves. Run your tests, see how your clay body reacts, experiment with different glazes to see how they behave on the non-porous ADVANCER® surface. Once you’ve experienced how effortlessly glaze drips scrape off, you’ll understand why potters rave about ADVANCER® shelves.
Strategic Protection for Risky Glazes
We all have those glazes—the beautiful, runny ones that make us nervous. If you’re developing new glaze recipes, testing clay bodies, or running glaze combination experiments, ADVANCER® cookies are indispensable. Place an ADVANCER® Cookie directly under pieces with unpredictable glazes. If it runs, the glaze sits on the non-porous nitride-bonded surface instead of embedding into your cordierite shelf. Cleanup is simple: a quick tap and polish with the GlazeEraser and the drip will pop right off. Your cordierite shelves stay clean. You avoid the grinding session + kiln wash touch up that would otherwise follow, and prevent shelf damage.
Creative Stacking in Tight Spaces
Loading a kiln often requires creative solutions to fit all the work you want to fire. This is where ADVANCER® Cookies shine. They can be used with kiln posts to create unique configurations. Perhaps you don’t have room for another entire layer of shelves, but you can fit a pot posted up on a 4” ADVANCER® Cookie.
ADVANCER® Cookies prove that good things come in small packages. Whether you’re testing the waters before a larger investment, experimenting with drippy glazes or solving specific challenges in a compact kiln, these versatile 4” round shelves deliver ADVANCER® performance exactly where you need it.