Testing, one, two three
May. 5th, 2019 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrA beautiful, sunny day, perfect for loading an outdoor kiln. (Well, it's under a roof, so rain isn't that much of an issue, though getting pots from the studio to the kiln yard can be a challenge.)
What do you fire in a completely untested kiln? You can't run it empty; totally different experience. You need thermal mass. You could load it with bricks, but that seems like a waste of space and gas. Ultimately, nothing fires like a kiln load of pots, except pots.
But they can't be precious pots. You never know how an experimental firing will turn out; that's the point of the experiment.
So I glazed Empty Bowls donations. Pulled out all of my old demo bisque pots, all the extra copies from special orders, threw some glaze on them. Jon volunteered a shelf of mugs, and access to some serving bowls if needed. Brian had a shelf of bowls that didn't fit in his last firing, Nicole had about as many mugs. Linda offered a wolf planter, Don a pair of bowls. I glazed up some tall and painted production mugs, and a bunch of batter bowls. And hoped it would be enough.
I'd forgotten how tight the stacking space is in this kiln. It's only two feet square, and the bag walls are tight. Fitting the shelves in without pinching your fingers is an exercise in spatial thinking. Also, the shelves aren't quite touching, the way they are in the big kiln, so you can't load pots overlapping the margin. It's really hard to fit in the Empty Bowls, though they're smaller than my standard production soups. I can just fit four on a shelf, with a lot of wasted space. Fortunately, I have cat food bowls and a bunch of tiny saucers I found in a box way in back, that can fit in those spaces.
I stack the bottom fairly loose, no plate shelves until I've passed the bag wall. Front and back shelves go in together, level, until about two-thirds of the way up, when there's not enough elbow room, so I stack the back up all the way to the arch, then finish the front.
Loading goes fast. I start taking ware boards out to the kiln yard around 10 am, and the kiln is full by 1 pm. I use two of Jon's servers, none of my batter bowls, have to grab a couple of stew mugs off my shelf to fill awkward spaces. I get all of the volunteer pots in, and only have seven or eight of mine left over.
After a break for lunch, and my weekly call to Mom, I go back for the difficult part. Closing the door.
Our other, big kiln is a car kiln. The floor and door are on wheels, on a track, so when you've finished stacking shelves and pots, you just roll it into the kin. Slowly, carefully roll it into the kiln.
This kiln isn't. You need to lean into the kiln to set the shelves, load the pots. It's phone-booth shaped, so at some point you're reaching up with the furniture, or else using a step stool. And there's no door to close.
Or rather, there is, but it's in pieces. Every time we fire it, we have to stack up bricks to fill the entrance. And since kilns move in firing, from thermal expansion/contraction, the door is never quite the same dimension. So we've got full bricks, broken bricks, half bricks, slightly-more-than or less-than half bricks, slivers of brick from two-inch down to a half inch. And a brick saw in case you can't find the dimension you need.
I struggle with the first couple of rows, always looking for a slightly-bigger or slightly-smaller brick than the one I have. Finally, it occurs to me that I have a tape measure, and things go much faster. I remember to build in peepholes for my cone packs, and position the thermocouple somewhere near the middle. The top couple of courses on the hot face (the inside layer of brick) has to fit under the arch. Fortunately, the regular users have trimmed bricks to fit, and conveniently numbered them so I know how to assemble them. Because of the changing dimensions, extra bits have been added, and the numbering can get creative. 5, 6, 7, 7.1, 7.5... you get the idea.
After about ninety minutes of jig-saw puzzling, the door is finished. Because this is an outdoor kiln, subject to the vagaries of wind and weather, I can't candle it over night. I'll have to be here very early tomorrow morning.
What do you fire in a completely untested kiln? You can't run it empty; totally different experience. You need thermal mass. You could load it with bricks, but that seems like a waste of space and gas. Ultimately, nothing fires like a kiln load of pots, except pots.
But they can't be precious pots. You never know how an experimental firing will turn out; that's the point of the experiment.
So I glazed Empty Bowls donations. Pulled out all of my old demo bisque pots, all the extra copies from special orders, threw some glaze on them. Jon volunteered a shelf of mugs, and access to some serving bowls if needed. Brian had a shelf of bowls that didn't fit in his last firing, Nicole had about as many mugs. Linda offered a wolf planter, Don a pair of bowls. I glazed up some tall and painted production mugs, and a bunch of batter bowls. And hoped it would be enough.
I'd forgotten how tight the stacking space is in this kiln. It's only two feet square, and the bag walls are tight. Fitting the shelves in without pinching your fingers is an exercise in spatial thinking. Also, the shelves aren't quite touching, the way they are in the big kiln, so you can't load pots overlapping the margin. It's really hard to fit in the Empty Bowls, though they're smaller than my standard production soups. I can just fit four on a shelf, with a lot of wasted space. Fortunately, I have cat food bowls and a bunch of tiny saucers I found in a box way in back, that can fit in those spaces.
I stack the bottom fairly loose, no plate shelves until I've passed the bag wall. Front and back shelves go in together, level, until about two-thirds of the way up, when there's not enough elbow room, so I stack the back up all the way to the arch, then finish the front.
Loading goes fast. I start taking ware boards out to the kiln yard around 10 am, and the kiln is full by 1 pm. I use two of Jon's servers, none of my batter bowls, have to grab a couple of stew mugs off my shelf to fill awkward spaces. I get all of the volunteer pots in, and only have seven or eight of mine left over.
After a break for lunch, and my weekly call to Mom, I go back for the difficult part. Closing the door.
Our other, big kiln is a car kiln. The floor and door are on wheels, on a track, so when you've finished stacking shelves and pots, you just roll it into the kin. Slowly, carefully roll it into the kiln.
This kiln isn't. You need to lean into the kiln to set the shelves, load the pots. It's phone-booth shaped, so at some point you're reaching up with the furniture, or else using a step stool. And there's no door to close.
Or rather, there is, but it's in pieces. Every time we fire it, we have to stack up bricks to fill the entrance. And since kilns move in firing, from thermal expansion/contraction, the door is never quite the same dimension. So we've got full bricks, broken bricks, half bricks, slightly-more-than or less-than half bricks, slivers of brick from two-inch down to a half inch. And a brick saw in case you can't find the dimension you need.
I struggle with the first couple of rows, always looking for a slightly-bigger or slightly-smaller brick than the one I have. Finally, it occurs to me that I have a tape measure, and things go much faster. I remember to build in peepholes for my cone packs, and position the thermocouple somewhere near the middle. The top couple of courses on the hot face (the inside layer of brick) has to fit under the arch. Fortunately, the regular users have trimmed bricks to fit, and conveniently numbered them so I know how to assemble them. Because of the changing dimensions, extra bits have been added, and the numbering can get creative. 5, 6, 7, 7.1, 7.5... you get the idea.
After about ninety minutes of jig-saw puzzling, the door is finished. Because this is an outdoor kiln, subject to the vagaries of wind and weather, I can't candle it over night. I'll have to be here very early tomorrow morning.