Cob on the Kiln

Joe and our friend Krista gobbin' the cob on the first chamber.

We worked hard all day and spent the evening roasting brats and s'mores over the campfire!

Firing at Windy Ridge

Things have been in transition at Windy Ridge, as the kiln building winds down, and we look forward to making pots and firing. We've set a tentative date for the first firing--November 1st and 2nd. Not too far away. The goal is to be able to make enough pots to fire the first and second chambers, and load the third chamber with unfired saggers for use in future firings. We've spent the last couple of days making and firing test glazes. We've gotten it fairly narrowed down and we think we can get a few of the glazes we are looking for with one more test firing. The little test kiln has been working beautifully. Difficult to get a heavy reduction, but good enough for testing, and quite fast and efficient.By the end of the week we should have our glazes figured out, have the kiln pretty much done, and be making pots.Tomorrow a couple of friends are coming over and helping us to stucco the kiln. We've decided to use a cob mixture on the first chamber--a 5''-6" thick mixture of clay, sand and straw. This mixture gives us a good combination of insulation and thermal mass, and it costs much less than fiber insulation. We're hoping to have a slightly longer firing, maybe somewhere between 36-48 hours (the fact I call a 36-48 hour firing long might seem silly to some, but I guess it's all perspective). The extra thermal mass will help with the longer firing by encouraging the first chamber hold its heat as we fire the second and third chambers. The second and third chambers will be covered with 2" of fiber insulation, and an thinner "stucco" layer of clay, sand and straw to help make it airtight. All the pots in the second or third chambers will all be glazed and won't need as long of a firing. Here's a picture of Christy mixing up a test batch of the cob mixture for the first chamber.
I imagine it might be nice to mix with bare feet, but fall is quickly approaching and the thought of cold water on bare feet just sent shivers up our spines.

Joe

Studio Time

We got some time in the studio today, preparing glazes and clays that we will test in our little electric-turned-gas test kiln later this week. We're planning to come up with a few ash and local rock glazes to use in the first firing along with the more commercial-material-based glazes we developed in NC.

It's had to get a good picture of our studio space, which is basically two small rooms framed off inside of an old metal machine shed. My dad did the work on it for us, so you can be sure it is sturdily built and well insulated. It is plywood, and the floor is crushed lime, so we have a little brown monochrome thing going on at the moment. Soon enough we'll fill it with pots, though. As my mom pointed out yesterday, if we're planning to fire in a month, we better get going right away!

Chimney Watch '08 part III

Hopefully we've laid the last brick for the chimney! I say hopefully since following my original calculations the chimney should be 21' tall and 22" in diameter. We ended up stopping a little under 20'. The picture is a little disturbing as all of the warped wood in the scaffolding tend to make the chimney look like it is about to topple over. You'll just have to take my word for it that it's straight and it's the scaffolding that is leaning. The scaffolding has definatly caused some worries this week. All the long boards are warped which causes the chimney to looked warped from a distance. Worst of all though I looked over this morning and I could have sworn the chimney was wobbling each time Christy hammered on the bricks above. I had to place my hand on the chimney to reasure myself that it was just the scaffolding that had the slight sway to it. Pretty terrifying though.The reason we stopped the chimney early is that at this hieght you can still see the top of the chimney from near the firebox. Which might be really nice during firing.
We thought we had measured it and that we could get all 21' of chimney up and still be able to see the top of the chimney from the firebox area, obviously we messed that calcution up somewhere. We'll fire it like this and if the kiln feels too sluggish we'll raise the chimney up a the foot and a half that the plans call for.

Joe

Chimney Watch '08 continued

Christy keeps getting faster at laying the chimney bricks, and the ladder keeps getting taller. It all makes for a long day of cutting and cleaning bricks and one tired little boy...
Hopefully we'll finish the chimney tomorrow.Joe

Apples

When I was hiking around our land this spring before the trees budded out, I noticed a little grove of what looked like apple trees on a beautiful hillside. I hiked back there a few days ago, and found three trees covered with apples! And I found one more apple tree along the way. The apples on two of the trees are a little past their prime, but the other two had fruit that was perfectly crisp and tart/sweet. The road between Mineral Point and Linden used to run through our land, according to an older woman who stopped by to visit this summer, there were homesteads all along the road. I returned yesterday with a bucket, and when we get some free time (haha!) I'll make some applesauce.

The trees are old and gnarled and beautiful.

Bulldozer Day

The excavator came out today. He made quick work of the old foundation, and spent the rest of the afternoon digging out our basement. Joe and I are just in awe of the precision and skill of the machine operators we have met this year. I don't think I could dig a straighter line with a shovel! He hit bedrock about five feet down, so our house will be a little higher off of the ground than we thought it would be. Some creative landscaping is in order next spring.




Joe and I worked on the chimney again today. We built a string form that you can see in the pictures above and below. Lining up the bricks is going pretty quickly with the form since there is less leveling and fussing with placement. We're up to eleven feet, for those of you who are counting (me!).

Chimney Watch '08

So, I thought the chimney was pretty tall until we put up scaffolding this afternoon. In the midst of mourning its relatively short stature, I pulled myself together long enough to measure it. Although it now looks a bit stubby, let the record show that I have 8 feet down (or up!) and a mere 13 to go...

--c

Christy's moving up in the world

Christy continues her progress upward on the chimney. Unfortunately we are all out of good clean bricks, so I've taken up the task of cutting and and cleaning bricks for the chimney. Christy's become quite the chimney princess, as I run around below cleaning her bricks, and passing up whatever else the princess might need.We've also completed the sidewalls, and cast the side stoking ports. We cast the ports around plastic planters which seemed to be the size and shape we want.
Joe

The House Move Has Officially Begun

The movers have started work on our house! Ken and the crew of Egge Movers brought lots of beams, including two enormous I-beams, and dropped them in the yard. Then they broke four holes in the foundation, tunneled into the crawl space, and lined the I-beams up with the holes.



Using a roller and bobcat, they pushed the I-beams through holes, into the basement...

and out the other side. We are now waiting for the excavator to come to our property to dig the basement, to be followed by the cement man pouring the walls. To be followed by our house moving down the road!

More Hamfam Help!

My brother John took the day off on Friday and came up from Dubuque to help us. He and Joe worked on the sidewalls while Mom and I worked on the chimney. I am pleased to report that the chimney is now just my height--5'2''. Then we went over to the house to begin the necessary destruction.

We took down an old chimney that was sandwiched between two walls, and did some prepwork for tearing the mudroom off the back of the house. It was too junky to take down the road with the rest of the house, so we cut it off on Saturday with the help of Papa Ray. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos of the Day of Destruction. You'll just have to imagine us chainsawing up a room, chaining pieces of it up to the truck, my mom gunning it, and boards and thirty-year-old insulation flying in all directions. I'll try to snap a few shots tomorrow when the movers come to begin putting beams under the house!

More on the side walls

Well half of the side walls are done. It looks a little clunky from this side. Each block is notched into the arch. We're hoping this keeps the side walls from moving too much and that we won't have to use metal bracing anywhere (Another idea from Will Ruggles, most of my good ideas come from him).
Luckly the side walls look a little better where it counts on the inside. The outside will all be covered by an insulating adobe mixture which should smooth out the rough brickwork. We are hoping to cast some kind of side stoking port, hopefully something that is easy to handle and seals up easily. Thus the large gaping holes where the side stoking ports should be.
Tomorrow we start the other side of the sidewalls....
Joe

Sidewalls and Chimney

Joe working on the sidewall of the second chamber

We are getting the second and third sidewalls up fast, thanks to our monster blocks.

The chimney from the side--17 feet to go!

The view from the back of the kiln.

more free stuff!

We have been extremely lucky in finding free, or very cheap items to help us get the pottery on it's feet. Another shining example is the free kiln shelves we just got from the Kolher plant. Pretty sweet. They aren't Silicon Carbide, but they should be alright. I've never used cordierite kiln shelves before, but David Smith used them in the woodfiring that I helped him with, and they seemed to work well. Certainly cann't beat the price. In other news we've finished the first chamber except putting in the grate system.
We've also started the third chamber. It looks quite small in comparison to the first two chambers. We are figuring on using this chamber for oxidation glazes. the comparitivly shorter and wider chamber should allow gases to pass through the chamber easier, leading to easier oxidation. It feels like the kiln is really coming along. Though I imagine we are halfway done at best. Still feels good.
Joe

Papa Ray at Work

Last winter, Joe and I asked Dad if he would make us a ball mill. He is excellent with a welder, an avid scrapyard hunter, and a creative tinkerer to boot, so we thought he could pull off the homemade ball mill. During the long winter, he put together scrap steel and an old heater blower motor, among other things, and brought the completed machine up to us this weekend. It is quite amazing! We should have the jars and balls assembled this week sometime. We're planning to mill up corn ash, clay that we set aside during all of the digging for the kiln shed, and some sandy rocks from our property for glaze tests in the coming weeks.
Dad also put the window in our studio this weekend. It looks wonderful to have the cool northern light filtering through the studio space. He plans to have the studio finished in the next weekend or two, so we'll be able to make pots after dark sometime soon. Thanks, Papa Ray!