firing all done, time for a little R&R

Well the firing is all done. Everything seemed to go smoothly. Reasonably even temperatures in the first and second chamber, and what looked to be a good atmosphere. Thanks to Sheridan and Don for all the great help. We'll continue the tradition of a stoker gallery, although I took the pictures myself and I was too lazy to get off my but and take any decent pictures. Also no pictures of myself. Though with all the great help I did not need to do too much stoking.



We're off now for a relaxing weekend with Christy's brother and Sister-in-law at a lake in Eastern Wisconsin. We'll post pictures when we unload.
Joe

loaded and getting hot

I've been trying to get more creative on my post titles.... pretty good huh?
I would have posted sooner, but I misplaced the camera for a little while there. Sheridan found it this morning though, and everything is going well. The first chamber is full.

The second chamber?....


A little less than full. We figured that since the second chamber is already getting to ~1800 either way we might as well put the rest of the pots in there and take advantage of the free heat. With such an empty chamber we were extra careful to try and stack the chamber evenly top to bottom, and side to side. We left 9" open on the floor, with the thought that this way there is a better chance that we can fire the chamber slightly dampered down and it will be easier to achieve a decent reduction
As for gap in the front of the first chamber, we stuffed some fiber in to act as an expansion joint.


We then covered that with newspaper soaked in a clay/sand slip to bridge the gap, and then covered that in our regular sand/clay/straw mixture, just to make it look pretty.
300 degrees and rising! The new kiln door fits quite tightly too... nice.
Joe

Loading- Day- Not- Loading Pictures

The test glazes we have in this firing are corn ash glazes with varying percentages of iron.

Charley is just certain that there are mice in the leftover straw!

This last pic is for Mama Hamilton. Remember that overflowing plate of brownies you brought yesterday? They were good!

Christy

Starworks Ceramics, and the kiln gets a make over

Well last day to make pots, and I figured I would give it a go with some clay that Takuro had so generously given to me to try out.

For those of you not in North Carolina, Star works Ceramics started up I believe about four years ago near Seagrove, with the intent of processing and selling local clay to pottters (as well as selling your run of the mill processed material). I worked there for several years, and helped Takuro test some of the clay, and build a wood kiln for workshops, as well as clay testing. Unfortunatly I moved to Wisconsin before Starworks was proccessing clay on a large scale. They are now up and running with all of there equipment and I'm happy to say making some great clay.

This was the first time I had a chance to give the clay a try, it threw well and I'm excited to see how it looks after the firing. I would certainly recomend anybody in North Carolina going and giving this clay a try. Or just stopping by to get your regular materials, Takuro is wicked smart when it comes to ceramic materials. Local clay with out all the digging, milling, and sieving... how cool is that? Takuro, and his wife Hitomi are also building a wood kiln at there house, check it out here.

We spent the last day before loading, recoating the kiln. After a little bit of experiementing we ended up with 3 parts local red clay, 1 part fireclay and 4 parts sand. We mixed enough of this for the whole kiln in a large tub. After a through mixing we bucketed it out into a wheelbarrow and added straw and cement. Unfortunatly this picture was taken later in the day and only has two thirds of the team: Sheridan who is staying with us for a little while to help with all the work ahead, and myself. Our friend Eric was a great help as well, but we were all too dirty and focused on the kiln to remember to take pictures while he was still around.

Hopefully with the new coat, and new door our kiln will be that much tighter and more effecient. We'll let you know in a couple of days.
Joe

Kiln door

Well I'm afraid I've been running into a bit of bad luck this week. Monday I was biking along and my bike broke on me. And we're not talking about a flat tire or broken chain or anything, my actual bicycle frame broke. Big ol' crack along the top tube of the frame. Bummer. So I was driving over to my Bother-in-laws place the next day thinking about the best way to get me a bike when.... wait for it.... my truck broke. Ohhh, when it rains it pours. Hopefully though all the bad luck is past us now and the kiln will be perfect.
Anyways I still had a good visit at John's, my Brother-in-law. John has a nice selection of metal working tools, and helped me to build a new stoking door for the front of the kiln.

We used the same bricks in the door as we did on the floor of our kiln. I know hard bricks aren't the best choice as they are not very insulating. However the price was right and it will certainly be a major step up from the piece of roofing steel that we had before. The door is 12" tall and 18" wide which I think will work well. It seems nice to keep the door as small as possible. It really keeps the heat off of you while you are stoking. Of course if you are planning on pulling pots out during the firing you would probably want something a little bigger.
The best part about the door?

personalized monogram! Windy Ridge... Thanks John.

In other news after a short break. Our carpenters are almost finished with our mudroom.


The house feels so much more livable now that is sealed up from the weather. After the firing next week I'll be back to working on the house full time. The first big project is to finish the floor of the bathroom and kitchen. Then a whole lot of drywall patching/repair.
Thanks everybody for the input on the teapot spouts. It's always nice to hear what other people are thinking. One more day to make pots... I had better get back to it.
Joe

demoing teapots

Well I wasn't planning on doing any demonstrations today, but this little guy was curious to see how it was all done.


really curious

he hung out in the window for at least ten minutes. I expect he'll be starting up his own pottery in no time.
Well we've given up on the idea of firing the first two chambers. The whole reason for the firing is to keep our gallery stocked. There's no point in firing a kiln full of just large platters, planters, and vases. So onto smaller items. With that in mind I made some side handled teapots. I know many people have come into potteries that I have worked at in the past and not known what they were. However they are the only type of teapot that I ever use for myself in the morning. Mainly due to how comfortable they are to handle along with the ease of cleaning out tea leaves afterward.
I tried out a new spout on several of them. I've always stuck with a straight spout in the past, but I though I would give a slightly curved spout a shot.


I'm still not sure what I think of the curved spout. I still feel like the straight spout might be a keeper. It just feels simpler and more direct, which is something I always strive for in my pots. Certainly I won't give up on the curved spout after just one go (I think I made three of the spouts curved this time around), I'll keep making some of the spouts curved for a while at least. Teapots always seem tough to judge for me before they are fired. I can't help but see them as a mismatch of various pieces. They always seem to come together after they are fired though. So I'll save final judgements until then. As always though I welcome your input. Straight spout? Curved spout?
Joe

Red, White, and (insert punch line here)

So I really wanted to come up with a clever pun/joke for a good title, however..... nothing.
I've been using the red slip some more. It's great to have both a red slip and a white slip, decorating options really multiply with two contrasting slips. One of my favorite combinations while working at Dover Pottery in NC was a layer of red slip followed by a layer of white slip which can then be wiped through to reveal the red slip underneath giving a nice contrast of colors. I've been trying this combination with our new red slip. Only in a small number of pots just in case something doesn't fit together. Hopefully it will come out well... here are a couple examples that I've been working on:




Here is a pot with the same combo with an ash glaze over it which was made while I was working at Dover pottery. Hopefully if things go well we'll get similar results.

For those of you who have never been there I would recommend a trip on over to "Timnasium". I got this picture from there. It's my good friend Tim Ayers flicker page. Tim has been making pots and taking pictures of other peoples pots for quite a while now. His flicker page contains many of the photos he has taken of various potters around North Carolina, along with some pictures of kilns. Quite an assortment, certainly worth a look.
take care
Joe