Our three senior woodfire adventurers...
Nora - the intrepid leader...
Nora started the firing around 6am. We decided to keep the temp low for a bit, especially compared to how the Adventure Firing went in the fall (at cone 8 in 4 hours!). We were worried about the residual moisture from the winter plus we had an enormous amount of rain in the previous 4 days (where yesterday we candled with propane for about six hours and we had good sunshine).
We are opening it up today and will post some pictures of the results. We will probably try and reload today so that I can fire again next week - Nora will be in South Carolina on a crew trip but we have so much work we can do it again. I want to get another one done before heading to NCECA and another wood firing with Bruce Dehnert...
The kiln is loaded and we are just waiting for good weather to fire. Some of the prep work we did this week: unpacked the curtains, swept out the chambers, chiseled some of the floor (it had some wadding and leftover soda ash from the last firing) and kiln washed the entire ware chamber.
Here's part of the crew at the opening of the kiln after our short "Adventure Firing". Added wood ash to the fire box, soda ash to the side stokes. 10 hours of firing.
We noticed soda build-up on the underside of the roof. We will protect the roof (and walls and floor!) next time and into the future...
The firing revealed beautiful orange and rust tones where the wood ash blushed the clay. Soft grays and whites formed when it built up.
Beautiful green jewel tones were created where the soda ash was allowed to build up. This is an extreme example, but nonetheless shows what so many of the pieces were kissed with. We are excited to fire in this way next spring. We will probably put the kiln to bed for the winter, although there is a possibility of one more firing...
The kiln is cooling now after our "Guinness" day of adventure firing. This was the 4th firing of the kiln in two weeks and we tried a number of different things. We fired in about the shortest time possible (7am until 5pm). We introduced wood ash into the firebox periodically. We introduced soda ash into the side stoke holes in the last couple of hours. Here is a shot of our mix of sawdust, soda ash, and hot water being ladled onto flat wood.
Wayne Fuerst loading the soda into the side stoke hole.
Steven Branfman came by to check out our 3rd firing. Here's an image of his pots being slowly introduced into the raku chamber. We had already taken some pots out and we were in the middle of the wood fire. We warmed up his tea bowls by placing them in the pizza oven for 15 minutes, then sitting them on sill of the raku chamber, and then we slowly pushed them in on thin soft-brick "boats". We then bricked up the chamber, and left them in for about half an hour. They turned out beautiful!
Great shot of Steven and Masakazu in front of the fire door!
This shot is from the floor, the passage way from the ash pit to the main chamber.
This is a view of the 3rd shelf, about halfway down the chamber. You can see the small niches on the left, just under the chimney. We got great flashing, ashmelt, and movement in just 13 hours! We are loading today for the 3rd firing, which we will fire for more time, perhaps 30 hours or so. More updates to come.
