Well… I guess it turns out more people than I thought were reading this blog. Here I thought it was just dear ole mom (Hi mom!) reading about her favorite son:-). I guess my neglect in posting an update to the firing was… well…. neglectful I suppose. Sorry friends, I was sick this week, grumpy and working hard, just haven’t had time.
So how did it turn out? Pretty dang well. I am happy. I wouldn’t say it was a “spectacular firing” but no disasters and interestingly enough just a few were sent to shard bin and those were more “throwing mistakes” than firing mistakes.
Here’s the info:
- It’s a fast kiln. It went from bone cold at 7 in the morning to cone 10 dropping around 4:30 (9 1/2 hours right?). I soaked it for a little over an hour at 10. The bottom was pretty cold (eventually only got to cone 9 down there) and just wouldn’t even out. I suppose I will need to pack the bottom lighter next time?
- I had over a cord and a half of wood piled up. Mostly millwork scraps (slivers to kindling size) and wood palettes. The kiln used, I am estimating 3/4 of a cord of wood - maybe less? I still have quite a bit left.
- It was pretty dry. As they say, the “Fast Freddy” doesn’t deposit a lot of ash, and they were right. The top shelves and the pots right above the flu inlets got the most, but nothing too juicy or runny. I certainly won’t be bragging to the local wood gurus.
- It was pretty dry soda wise as well. I think I completely under estimated the amount needed for a kiln this size. I kept pulling dry rings out, and chucking in more burritos.
- It holds a lot of pots. A lot of pots… just look at the pics.
- Did exactly what I wanted, fired a bunch of pots for little cost (all the wood is free and I never had to fire the back up propane burners) and all in all the pots look great!
Next time:
- I may actually go back to spraying soda. The natural draft of this particular kiln coupled with being a down draft and not a cross draft means the soda distribution sucks.
- Pack the bottom lighter and relax during the firing. I was rushing around trying to stoke like mad, I probably could have milked a few extra hours out of it.
- I’ll start the second firebox earlier in the firing. It was pretty hard keeping one firebox stoked while trying to get the other one going. However, the one firebox did get the kiln to 1600 degrees on it’s own. Not bad!
- Keep dark pots on the top shelf. I found the melted ash “peppered” on the pieces of porcelain on the top shelf not to my liking. I’ll keep the stoneware up there and hide the porcelain below next time.
- Invite some friends. Stoking a kiln yourself is pretty tiring.
Here’s some pics, I’ll post more of my favorite pots later. I’ve also already posted quite a few pots on Etsy for sale. The rest are being decaled and taken to the Big Crafty this weekend (Sunday at Pack Place). Come check us out!
A few nice pots
1/2 empty - the back shelf.
I see some tumblers ready for some swinging men on there.
Amazingly, this is only half the pots.
I ran out of table space and had to ship off orders
and stow in cabinets before I could unload the rest.
