First day of loading

Here are a couple of pictures from our first day of loading. Here is the back stack of pots in the first chamber. It's a fairly short stack as the stack runs into the arch pretty quickly. We're careful not to allow the pots to get too close to the arch as this always seems to lead to cold spots, and may effect the flame path.
Here is the begining of the main stack in the first chamber:This is the main stack. There are two side shelves which will run into the arch at the same spot the side shelves do in back. However the center 2'x3' shelf will run up about 6' tall. The front row of pots is unglazed and will hopefully collect most of the wood ash. Everything else is glazed. Hopefully we can finish loading the first chamber tomorrow, and start on the second chamber Thursday. I always have trouble telling how far the pots will go during the loading process. It always seems to be a roller coaster sometimes thinking that there is no way all these pots are going to make it in the kiln, sometimes convinced that we will certianly run out of pots before we reach the end. I'm quite certain this time though that we don't have enough pots to fill the kiln. I'm just not really sure how far into the second chamber we will make it. My guess right now... the second chamber will be half full. We'll see...
Joe