The first chamber is all done except casting the "key", and casting the seam between the main arch and the back arch.Here is a close up of the top of the first chamber. The mortar joints tend to get pretty big at the top of the kiln, so I pounded in some scrap pieces of brick to keep the joints from contracting.
Christy's parents were here this weekend, and they were able to help us pull out the second arch form. We should be able to start work on the third arch fairly soon!
Christy's Dad put windows and doors in our studio space, and Christy and her mother sanded the floor of our "new to us" house. The hope being that we can move into the house shortly after it arrives. Lots to do before winter.
Joe

The Kiln Team

Joe spent the day working on the front of the kiln,

and I spent the day working on the chimney!

The back of the first chamber

The slow and steady progression continues on the first chamber. I finally made it up to the section where the rear arch that springs off of the flue and meets the main arch. It was a bit unnerving at first as I didn't know exactly how it was all supposed to fit together. I'm trying to do it with as little brick cutting or castable as possible since both diamond saw blades and castable cost quite a bit more than the used bricks we have. After wrecking several bricks with cuts that didn't look quite right, I ended up with this.
--a single simple cut on the main arch. I'll still probably end up laying down a small coil of castable to seal on the joint as it isn't all that tight. I think it should be structurally sound though. I've never seen a Bizen kiln in person, which is unfortunate since I'm sure there is a better way of doing this. For those of you who aren't familiar with Bizen kilns there is a nice web page out there of Makoto Hatori's Bizen Kiln. At the bottom of the page you can scroll through the building process. Two things are evident: First bamboo makes a beautiful arch shape, much more natural than the pointy catenary arch. Second, it certainly looks like he built his first chamber without cutting too many bricks or using any castable.
Lots to learn
Joe

Work on the first chamber

to cut some of the big solid blocks square and use them for the door arch. A little more brick than we need there but hopefully they will look good. You can also see the three air inlets. The bottom one is an air inlet bellow the grate and will be the main one we use. It's a little taller so we can rake out embers if the need arises. The other two are air inlets are for above the grate system depending on where we want the grates to be (we hope to make the grates fairly adjustable depending upon the type of firing we want to have). Here's a picture of Christy using the last of our gravel that we purchased for footing for back filling around the first chamber.
We also decided to notch the main arch so it locks into the door arch. Hopefully this will keep the door arch from wandering to much. A trick I learned from Will Ruggles while I was helping my good friend Lara O'keefe build her kiln. Certainly we will not be able to notch the bricks to fit the door arch as we get to the top of the chamber due to the shape of the chamber and the different thicknesses of the regular brick and the block. I don't think it will be a problem though. Over half the door arch will be locked in and I doubt it will move too much.

Hopefully we can finish this chamber up by the end of the week!
Joe

Yum Yum!

Did somebody say "BLT Night at Stosh and Jane's house???"

The First Chamber is Ready For Bricks

Big day at Windy Ridge! We cast the key for the second chamber which was very good to get done.
We also finished the form for the first chamber, which I'm pretty pleased about. I thought I had gotten myself in over my head a couple of times these last few days trying to build the front chamber a shape I've never built before. We got it figured out though, with a little bit of ingenuity from Christy and a little fudging with the masonite. Hopefully we can start bricking it up tomorrow!
Joe

The first chamber continues

Work on the first chamber arch forms continue. It all seems to be going well. Winks was there to oversee the whole operation and make sure things were going to plan. Unfortunately Winks needed a little oversight in removing himself from the rafters this evening.

One arch down two to go

Well the second chamber arch went fairly smoothly. We still need to cast the key, but that shouldn't be a problem. Christy and I worked on getting the arch forms for the first chamber cut today. Unfortunately the first chamber arch is a little more complex, and it looks like the front section of the kiln footings might not be completely square. Hopefully we can get it all figured and straightened out and be laying bricks again latter this week.
Joe

moving up in the world

A lot has happened since our last post. First off our brick saw broke so we spent the day putting the floor in the kiln since we could do 95% of the floor without the saw. The floor simply rests on a bed of sand and has a 3/4" expansion gap around all four side to keep it from pushing on the arch or side walls during the firing. We also backfilled around the chimney, though I don't have any pictures of that right now.Well we got our brick saw replaced (it was still under warranty). And are now ready to start with the arches. Christy helped me put in the arch form for the second chamber before she headed out to spend the weekend with her family. Here are a couple of pictures from the form construction process.


It feels great to finally be done with all the ground work and finally be moving upward!
Joe

more kiln pics

Not much time tonight, Christy and I are heading out on the town! Got a lot done on the kiln though. We got the footing for the smoke duct, and chimney laid today. You can see from the top picture that the blocks and the firebricks don't line up quite as nicely as we had hoped for (we though the blocks were 5" and the bricks were 2.5", it ends up the blocks are a little closer to 5 1/8"). We had to shim the firebricks up with small tiles.

Back on task

We're back to kiln construction after an enjoyable, if somewhat exhausting break helping David Smith fire a kiln. We put in a cement slab to support the chimney.


Then continued laying blocks. Hopefully if everything continues to go well we should be putting up arch forms soon!

Our "New" House

Joe and I have found a house to move to our property! It is currently located about 6 miles from our house on a dairy farm. The house was originally built for the hired person on the farm, and later rented out. The current owners were planning to demolish it before we showed up on their doorstep on a tip from the lady who runs the town dump. It is structurally solid, but as you can see from below, it is a bit of a mess! Before Mom and I got there this afternoon to do some cleaning, the living room looked like this:
We hauled out the old carpet (which was really fun to tear up), the straw, the random pieces of trim, and few really neat old square canning jars with ceramic lids, among other things. It was looking much better this evening, although I have about a billion little staples from the carpet to pull out of the soon-to-be-lovely hardwood floors.
According to evidence found on the carpet we tore out, the house appears to have been home to a raccoon for awhile. Although he has moved out, a mama barn cat decided that the entryway would be a good place for her kittens to grow up. Hopefully all the ruckus we made today will inspire her to move them somewhere else. The people who own the house now told us that we have to take the kittens with the house, though!

We're planning to have the house here sometime this fall. Since we are planning to use part of the house as a pottery gallery, we have a few meetings to go through with the county and township, but according to everyone we have talked to, things should work out. We're excited at the possibility of having a roof over our heads!

Christy

The New Ladies and their Sweet Little House

My talented and wonderful Dad has finished the new ladies house. It is pretty much a smaller version of our last chicken house (just because the trailer is smaller)with the addition of windows so they can have some light on cold winter days when they don't want to come outside. I must admit, I am quite pleased with the barn-red paint! I couldn't find any straw to use for bedding, so the farmer who rents our land kindly brought me a mini bale of hay, and now the house smells sweet and grassy.
Here are a few members of the motley flock. A Barred Rock, Golden Laced Wyandotte, Aracana, Dominique, Light Brahama, and a few Sex-Links made it into the picture.

more kiln work

Work on the kiln continues, though slightly slower due to a lack of sleep on my part. I've been helping with a wood firing workshop taught by David Smith. I think it will be a good experience for me, but I've got three overnight stoking shifts this week, so it certainly slows done the kiln construction. I'll get pictures of the kiln David built and post them later. For now though you can see David's kiln at home along with his work, resume, ect: http://anagama.org/davidsmith/index.htm


For now though pictures of our kiln:

As you can see the first chambers flue is all done. The wider flues on the outside are to keep the tempature even, as the tempature in the center of the kiln naturally tends to be higher. The wider outside flues help to draw the flame to the outside of the kiln.
The floor is all ready for it's layer of firebrick. I was going to put that in today, but Charley really enjoys resting in the sand, and there is no need to put it in before the arches go up. I was originally planning on leaving just a sand floor with brick footers for the shelves, simply to save money. However we managed to get some 6"x12"x2" bricks at What Cheer quite cheap, and I couldn't help myself. This picture also shows the notched brick ready to accept grate bricks. Which will span from directly over the flue to the floor of the second chamber. It's not so obvious in the picture, but the large hollow brick is just there to hold a string in place to help keep the bricks we lay in a straight line.
Joe

Charley at rest, Joe and Christy at work

Work on the kiln continues.... Charley's resting in front of the first flue. The whole floor will be raised to that level. Maybe a waste of firebrick to have 15" of firebrick footers, but the large blocks lay quite fast and I think we have enough to make it all happen. We accidentally had the whole kiln dug out a little too deep and the extra tall footers help to remedy that, and ease my heaving worries.
Joe

This Is It...If You're A Chicken!

The biggest rooster let out his first official crow this morning, which can only mean one thing...I drop them off at the processor tomorrow at 7 am. I'm not so sure that I will get the slow Cornish Crosses again. I have really liked them these past few years--they have been good foragers, calm, and friendly, too, but this batch has been lazy and death-prone. I'm planning to go old-fashioned next year, if I can find a rooster from someone (all of my heritage-breed rooster chicks died during the Great Gnat Invasion of 2008) and let a hen raise some chicks for eating. I'm looking forward to chicken on the grill later this week!

Onto the Kiln!

Aaron Weaver and Krista Loomans visited us and helped us get a great start to the kiln! I am pretty excited with finally starting construction of the kiln. Things seem to be going smoothly, although this is my first experience building kilns with footers. A little bit of a learning curve there, but I think we got it figured out. The footing are mostly compacted gravel, with a thin layer of sand to start the bricks off of. The brick pillars you see in front are to hold the next footing in place. Well I am off to dream kiln dreams....

Charley Relaxing in the Kiln Footing