Thursday, October 13, 2005

First Wood Firing in MY Wood Kiln!

Nov. 5th is the next wood firing. Here are pictures from the one this spring:

Loaded and ready to go:


Some of the wood:


The firing begins:


Here we were losing too much heat out of the chimney, but it looked really cool:


The lintel above the stoke hole stuck out a bit, making it impossible to completely cover the stoke hole:


The view from above (note the glowing through the lid (it is TWO high temperature silicone carbide kiln shelves thick!):


We only had about five pieces blow up, but they were big ones (all greenware):


The best looking of the survivors (some were greenware):

Monday, March 21, 2005

My first wood firing

I got to see (part of) my first wood firing at Gulf Wars. Anyeta built a Roman bottle-type kiln. I helped a little with the construction and took lots of pictures. Here we go:

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The kiln was in the Early Period Life area of the site. I hate I got the car in the background.

A view of the shelves and support:
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Fully loaded (this was all there was to fire):
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View of the cones and draw rings through the peephole:
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The taller it got, the scarier it got:
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View from a distance. You can see the Viking longhall in the background:
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The firing begins. The chimney says "Cone 06 or Bust Gulf Wars XIV." I think it eventually hit 2000 degrees Fahrenheit - around cone 04!
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With a flash:
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No flash, you can see the firebox area and the flames coming out of the chimney (that's Mistress Anyeta standing and watching):
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My favorite picture:
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I didn't make it back for the unloading, but it looked like only a couple of pieces broke. That's good, considering most of them were made during the week and some were only a little past leather hard. I don't know how the cones melted (07. 05, and 03), but I hope to talk to Anyeta soon and find out.