A high temperature dilatometer attached to a graphite furnace is built and used to study the sintering behaviorof B4C. Pristine and carbon doped B4C compacts are sintered at various soaking temperatures and their shrinkage pro-files are detected simultaneously using the dilatometer. Carbon additions enhance the sinterability of B4C with sinteringto more than 97% of the theoretical density, while pristine B4C compacts could not be sintered above 91% due to par-ticle coarsening. The shrinkage profiles of B4C reveal that the effect of carbon on the sinterability of B4C can be seenmostly below 1950°C. The high temperature dilatometer delivers very useful information which is impossible to obtainwith conventional furnaces.