offcntr | Entries tagged with success

We planned to unload the glaze kiln Wednesday night, so we could both attend our book arts meeting Thursday afternoon. Which meant I was down at the studio at 7 am to start the kiln cooling. Cracked the damper, opened up the burner ports, pulled the ceramic fiber strips off the door jambs (as best I could reach. Tea had every folding table and flat surface in the kiln room covered with stacks of bowls for his next firing). Took a pic from my phone camera through the top peep. That's the edge of a pie plate, glaze is mature and well-reduced. Promising... except I think this is one of the ones I glazed after I mixed up the new batch.

I literally phoned in the rest of the cooling, asking Tea to pull out the damper further, getting Jon to crack the door. Got there a 7 pm, just as he was preparing to leave, and got him to help me pull out the car.

Which was beautiful. Everything turned out fine, minimum of oxidation, only one soup bowl with a cracked rim and a baker with bubbled black stain. Whatever was wonky about the ball clay doesn't seem to have affected the glaze at all, so I'm fully stocked again, and can start preparing for Clay Fest.

So the kiln may have been packed a little tighter than usual. Lots of bowls and plates and pie dishes. Extra tight stacking of mugs, because of the way Great Harvest mugs and painted mugs fit together. Hardly any tall pots at all.

So I shouldn't have been surprised not to have cones yet when I came in at 5:30 am, though I did have nice orange heat. Body reduction by 6 am, slow but steady rise after. Surprisingly, the bottom was hotter than the top. I used to get this regularly, a couple of years ago, but more recently, the bottom runs cold, and I have to do a lot of fiddling with the damper to even things out. This time, I could just set it and let it go. Once the bottom reaches temperature, even if the top is half a cone cooler, carryover heat will manage the rest.

It was a late finish, 8:45 pm, but I had cone 10 down on the bottom, starting to bend on top. 78 units of gas, which is a bit high, but the heater in the main studio was running all day as well. That's just what happens, firing in winter.

Unloaded the kiln Thursday morning, with gorgeous results.

This is what a really successful firing looks like.

A little oxidation in the far back--with this kiln, that's gonna be inevitable--but otherwise really consistent reduction, with no overly brown pots. Could maybe have shut down the kiln ten minutes earlier, but only one pot showed too much flowing of glaze on a vertical surface, which, for a load of 300 pieces or more, is really outstanding.

After feeling critically understocked ever since the beginning of last month, it feels nice to have all the boxes full (and shelves full tomorrow at Market). Clay Fest is only a month away, and I feel like I'm finally ready.

Took a bunch of pictures while unloading. Here's a few.

So many good pots out of the kiln, but still so many left over. Here's a sampling of what got through the firing. I'm still going to reload and fire again this week. I've been so far behind this year that I just want to get a little bit ahead, even if it's temporary.

So, cookie jars:

Covered casseroles:

Mixing bowls and mixing crocks:

A whole lot of pie plates, but only two desserts:

...which is why I feel the need to load up the kiln again tomorrow.

Had an unusually successful firing this last time, mostly, I think, because I stopped trying to fiddle with it to improve the atmosphere, or the fuel efficiency, or whatever. Finished promptly a little after 6 pm, top still a little hotter than the bottom, but not excessively so, and when I opened it up Wednesday evening, there were a couple of light zones, but no terribly over-reduced ones. And though two pasta bowls developed cracked rims, I still had three octopus and three crabs to fill my gallery order. Hustled them out Wednesday night and took them home to pack and ship Thursday morning, to arrive at Olympia before the Monday deadline.

I was so pleased with the firing, I took a whole bunch of pictures. Here's a sampling.

The bear butt toilet brush holders all turned out well, leaving the clients with a dilemma--which two to choose? They eventually settled on the two golden grizzly bear pots, leaving me with the black bear and cub for my bathroom. I finally get to throw out that ugly cut-down milk jug.
bear butts!

The javelina lady is finally happy with her bowl and mugs--they got swiped by oxidation in the last firing, she wanted them browner. Also, I forgot to paint the baby piggy. Job finally finished, shipping out in the morning.
have a javelina

The Palau Owl is particularly lovely, as is the endangered species wedding set, and the long-haired dachshund pitcher is just the right shade of gold.
pal-owl

Even the banks and incense dragons seem brighter and happier than usual.
felines... nothing more than felines

It was a good firing!

I've struggled with my last few firings. Temperature all over the place, random oxidation, lots of less-than-stellar pots. I longed for the good old days, when the kiln climbed steadily, flame flickered in the chimney, and the bottom cones dropped just slightly ahead of the top. When I could shut down with cone 10 touching on the bottom, knowing the cone on top would drop that last quarter-inch on carryover, and the pots would come out lovely and warm-toned and iron-spotted.

Guess what? It happened again!

Last Thursday's firing was the best I've had in years--only the slightest swipe of oxidation along the right door sill, affecting half of three pots, cones dropping in lovely sequence, firing done by 7 pm at just 69 units of gas. And the results, when I opened the car on Sunday, looked like this!

Ain't it beautiful?

I didn't really have any expectations. We'd never tried this sort of sale before (well, we'd tried, but had to cancel twice). The only sales we've done before as a co-op have either been 1) a seconds sale, held inside the studio in late winter, or 2) a rambling group showing during the Art Center's July fundraiser/Art Fair, where we jam together all our display units and divvy them up by the linear foot.

But pop-up sales have become a common thing during the plague times, limited-size affairs put on by the artists to try and take up some of the slack that the big, cancelled art fairs left in their wake. So Club Mud decided to hold May Day Clay Day.

Maude Kerns let us take over their parking lot, on a day they were closed. Seven of us put up individual booths, plus an info-access control booth at the entry, and a double-size group sales space back along the building. In all, fourteen of our thirty-plus members participated. Laura had an inspiration, and hit a party supply rental for white picket fencing in 8-foot lengths, to help space out our booths, and block access from the alley.

We publicized it on the cheap--Mail-chimped the email list we've accumulated over the years, hit Instagram from multiple accounts, got on event calendars in the Eugene Weekly and Craigslist. I sent out press releases to to print and radio, and the Register-Guard, our local daily, even gave us a short piece in their Wednesday Entertainment Section.

The weather initially looked threatening, but the showers stopped around 9 am, and by 10, when we opened, it even got a little sunny. And people came.

Busiest was the first hour; I think. Mindful of COVID restrictions, we kept track, trying to limit to 40 customers on site at any given time. I think we pretty much succeeded, but as they left, more came in. Masked and well spread out, but consistent. It thinned out by mid-afternoon, but people were still shopping and we were still selling.

I got the impression we all sold really well--my neighbor said she was over $500 for the day, and I know I broke $1000. It was also just nice to spend time with other potters. We haven't had a studio meeting in over a year, nor even ZOOM, and chain emails just aren't the same.

So on the whole, a successful experiment. We're talking about another one, maybe in July.

I've been super happy with the glaze kiln since we installed gas pressure gauges on all the burners last winter, even happier since I spent a little time with a hammer and stake, banging the brick tighter together on the door, door-sill and chimney. I've working out a firing regimen that allows me to light the kiln between 8:30 and 9 pm, come in again at 5:30 am to turn up air and gas, and have body reduction at 6. Afterwards, I can fire with minimal adjustments right up to cone 10, which has been happening within 20 minutes of 6 pm, plus or minus.

This last firing, I had an even better surprise: no oxidation at all, anywhere in the kiln. The closest was in one toddler bowl, down near the front right corner, that was neutral to slightly reduced. One bowl. Also, I didn't really have any over-reduction either. In the past, I've had pots come out so brown that the image doesn't show up. I have toasty brown rims, but lovely warm cream-with-iron-speckle everywhere else.
otter bliss

I only did one thing different, as far as I can tell. I clamped the door shut immediately before body reduction, rather than after. No real reason; just wanted to get that step done so I didn't forget.

Our car kiln door is basically a stacked wall of brick, theoretically held in place by a channel iron across the top, anchored to the bottom with tie rods and bolts. Automotive valve springs keep tension on the rods, compressing as the brick as heats up and expands, springing back as it cools. Except they don't anymore, really. The coils no longer expand, so in practice, there's about a quarter inch between the top of the brick and the channel iron, which makes it very scary pushing the door closed, trying not to tip the whole wall of brick over. Once the kiln has heated up, everything's tight again, which makes it a good time to fasten bar clamps to the top of the channel iron. The other end is anchored to steel framing at the back of the kiln, so tightening the clamps pulls the door tight against the arch, keeps heat expansion from opening gaps.

When we started using the clamps, I didn't want to tighten them on a cold kiln, because I figured the roof bricks would start to break, trying to expand with no room to do so. I also didn't want to wait too long, because gap on the top of the door, so I chose right after body reduction as a reasonable compromise.
good to the last shelf