I think it is important to stress the hold at Cone 5, it will fall between 30 and 60 minutes, rather than a set "60 minutes", each kiln is different and newer kilns with better insulation will take shorter to reach Cone 6 during that hold.  Obviously using some cone packs (^5,6,7)during the test run/runs will help determine the appropriate hold  time (as Brian noted in his reply).

Also Steven does a single firing of his pieces, so the Hold at at Ramp 1 is critical for this.  IF you are firing work that has already been Bisque fired, then the hold at RAMP 1 is probably not necessary, though a short hold isn't a bad thing.

I just reprinted the information from the Steven Hill article.  I have used this schedule with great success.

To make that Freefall happen at RAMP five,  Skutt temp is 9999'F and L&R is 4000/Hr.

Here's the schedule Steven posted on Facebook in 2010 right after he nailed it - don't know if he made any subsequent modifications or not...

"... briefly... cooled naturally to 1750, 50 an hour to 1600, 1 hour soak at 1600, 50 to 1500, then off. Pretty radical, but the micro crystalline glazes were spectacular!"

Karen - We normally use a 50F cooling between 1,800F and 1,500F, both with and without SCM. We lose the shiny poster-paint gloss which many ^6 glazes otherwise exhibit.

But we also get so much more crystallization that I need to add additional frit or other glass formers to typical ^6 glazes (used without SCM) to prevent them from "drying up" and turning matte during the crystallization.

I'm curious what is the main difference you see when you also hold at 1,600F for an hour? You say micro-crystalline formation, rather than macro-crystalline formation like the photo below. Or is this what you mean?

This is typical.  Clear Base Blue, glaze #39 on this webpage:

http://www.wpapotters.blogspot.com/2010/11/cone-6-oxidation-results...

Without a slow-cool, . . . with our slow-cool, . . . and finally the same glaze at our slow-cool with 10% 3269 Ferro Frit added.

Slow-cooling creates so much micro-crystallization that the shiny blue glaze becomes a matt brown. Adding frit enables the increased micro-crystallization to remain under a layer of glass - or at least that's my current explanation.

Karen Totten said:

Here's the schedule Steven posted on Facebook in 2010 right after he nailed it - don't know if he made any subsequent modifications or not...

"... briefly... cooled naturally to 1750, 50 an hour to 1600, 1 hour soak at 1600, 50 to 1500, then off. Pretty radical, but the micro crystalline glazes were spectacular!"