Pictures!!! part 2

Another nice platter of Christys... The corn ash glaze is clear when thin and gets very milky very quick when slightly thicker.


Well, I'm running out of things to say.... plate:


A vase that I threw and Christy decorated... I think this is the first time we've ever collaborated on a pot


Another nice dish of Christys...
And another view of the same dish showing of the feet.



Well that's all the pictures for now. Sorry for the long delay.
Joe

Pictures!!!

Well we finally have in our posession a camera that works! Yeah!!

I can't really complain, but we have actually sold a couple of the nicer pots out of the last firing already.... who knew our customers had such good taste?


First off the not so good. This is the red slip with white slip over it. I like the look of this alot, unfortunatly it looks like it needs a little work still. I'm pretty pleased with the look of it though, and the cracks are just in the white slip, still a usable plate.... not bad really. I imagine just thinning down the white slip a little will clear it up.

Here is our new red slip with a clear glaze over it.


A little mug that turned out well. The heavier reduction led to some darker greens which I like.


White slip with fish... Sorry I was too lazy to pull all the price tags off of the pots for the pictures...


This is probably my favorite pot of Christys this firing. Red slip with white over it.

More to come....

more firing photos.

Still no camera... soon though.
Sheridan took some pictures though during the firing. Our good friend Dan Rhode (no relation) is writing a pottery book and wanted to have some firing photos. Luckily Sheridan had a nice camera and got some great shots. Sounds like Windy Ridge Pottery might be hitting the big time, or at least feature in a pottery book. Here are a couple of the photos...



I'm hoping he uses this photo below with the caption "Joe Cole likes to keep the testosterone high. Preferring the stoking pace that is offered by stoking half a tree at a time". It's funny to me at least. For though of you with out woodfiring experience, that is by far the largest piece of wood I've ever put in our kiln. We were holding the temperature steady at the time and I was to lazy to split it with the maul.

This is a little closer to par.


Hope you like the pictures. Not much else to report. I've spent the last little bit of time cleaning the pots, and kiln. Also taking care of all the weeds around our kiln which were threatening to go to seed. I just started yesterday working on reinforcing the floor joists below the bathroom and kitchen, in preparation for tiling the floor. Looks like Christy will have time to start making pots today! She's spending most of her time earning money to keep the two of us afloat. Thanks Christy.
Joe

firing results.... without the all the boring pictures

I'm afraid we have some kind of camera/firing jinx. Those of you who were around for our first firing will recall that our camera died during our first firing. This time our camera stopped working right before unloading. Luckily the camera is still fairly new and they should fix it under warranty.
The firing went very well. None of the major catastrophes you've all come to expect from our last two firing. Our first two firing were marked with wheelbarrow loads of pots making there way back behind our barn to join the shard pile. None of that this time around.
Overall the firing went very well. We have slowly been figuring out our kiln, temperatures continue to get more even, and reduction more predictable. That not to say that we've got it all figured out. I just finished raising the bagwall a little bit more in preparation for the firing this fall, as the second chamber still tends toward a cool floor. Also we slightly over reduced this time... nothing horrible. I really like the color of the pots when they flash to go all the way from a deep orange to just a slight bit of white on the back side. The pots up front went from the same orange to a dark tan on the back side. So just not as much contrast as I would like, but still nice. I think what threw us off was the new door lets so much less air in the front of the kiln as compared to the old door. No biggie though.
We also had a little bit of trouble with glaze fit on a couple of my larger bowls. The glaze crazed so much that you can pull at the glaze with your fingernail where the glaze pooled in the center of the bowl. Not that the glaze is falling off, but it's not something that I would be comfortable selling. Only happened in a couple of bowls, and should be fixable.
Well that's most what we ran into this firing. I won't go bragging about our pots, though I do think they came out pretty well. I'll wait for the camera to come back in working order to show you all what the pots look like. The red slip is quite nice and adds a nice change of scenery from the white slip. Hopefully we'll get our camera fixed soon, though I imagine it might be a week or so...
Joe

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