Glazing for anagama

Two days to go before setting off for the next anagama at Higham Hall College.
Glazing nearly finished, the concentration needed is tiring but I've finally learned to give myself enough time. And I made notes, so there's a chance I'll know which glazes are on which pots when they come out of the kiln - must record where they are in the kiln.

I love the chemistry of ceramics (not very good at it mind you) but the glazing I used to find painful, physically, like those awful cross country runs at school, close your eyes, scream and launch yourself through  the cold, muddy puddles - that's how I've always felt when glazing, it only gets better once it's all over.  When I was making slip cast earthenware, one glaze, resist decoration and cobalt wash, it was simple but tedious; raku glazes seem to smother my textures so I don't use much in that medium; I never knew enough to be in control and I think I just didn't like the glazes I was using or the results.

But now,  I think I'm almost enjoying the process. The simplicity of wood fire glazes is beautiful. The basic ingredients are identifiable as rocks, clay and ash. The process of their melting is imaginable and there's the possibility that the combination of ingredients and fire will produce a moment of pure magic way beyond the sum of its parts.

No photo, you have to imagine your own perfection

The final firing

The final firing of this little kiln that is.
Number 27, 7th July 2012

That was the Wimbledon weekend when Andy Murray finally made it to the final and I realised on Friday that I had to fire on Saturday in order to watch the tennis on Sunday. Only the realisation happened on Friday evening after he won the semi, which I had been watching instead of packing the kiln (keep up there).

If I packed in the morning and fired into the night I would get enough sleep to be awake again in time for the final. That's if the forecast bad weather held off long enough.

Another fairly loose pack. Flat black clay tiles on the bottom shelf 'wadded' on silica sand, two more shelves, large platter on the top shelf. Cones 7, 8, 9, 10.

Midday Saturday, high cloud, gusting from the North and North East, a bit chilly really but DRY and NO midgies.  Lit the gas to get it going. The gas blew out so for the first time I started with wood alone. Usually the kiln has absorbed so much moisture from the humidity that I have to dry it out for at least a couple of hours on gas. However whilst the covers have been going on at Wimbledon and England is doing an impression of Atlantis this corner of The Misty Isle is having a drought.

Five hours later with the pyro reading 993ºC I reckoned it was as good a time as any to let the kiln do a fast fire!
After 7 hours it was at 1158ºC after which it started to slow a little
After 8 hours it was at 1168ºC but touching 1200º so I put the soda in, about 250g
          9 hours               1212ºC  cone 7 bending
         10 hours              1220ºC  cones 8 & 9 softening, getting a good temperature rise with thin pine branches about 2 - 3 inches diameter.

After 10 and 1/2 hours it reached 1251ºC with cone 10 softening. End of firing.  At least 3 hours shorter than normal.

Bed, sleep then sit back and watch Andy lose! But just like woodfiring it's the taking part that counts not just the results.

Philadelphia Museum of Art craft show.
Where to begin? and how long have we got?
Not a kiln blog this one but the culmination of 6 months of making and firing. I found out in March that I had been selected as one of 25 makers to represent Scotland as the guest country at PMA Craft show in November. Serious stuff when put like that but no matter how insignificant I feel at times this was an opportunity I wasn't going to turn down.
So I worked my socks off in a very unsystematic, head in the sand kind of way. Trying new things with new clay and new techniques, 'throwing' old stuff into the mix and hoping to goodness  that there would be something decent at the end of it. I fired the wood kiln 6 or 7 times in 6 months (too much for one middle aged woman)  in all weathers (mostly wet this year), rakuing whenever panic loomed. With only half my mind focused on it, the raku work grew, thrived and blossomed. The hands know what they are doing. 

The wood firing was a struggle. I loved doing it but wasn't yet loving the results. One or two pieces from each firing would shine and keep me motivated until the next firing. And I had to keep making, not give up, keep optimistic with all those warnings from wood firers ringing in my ears - ' you learn to love brown'   'don't expect the public to to love it'  'you'll smash more on the spoil heap than you'll keep', blah blah blah but how true.
And then from the ashes of the final firing, 2 days before taking the work to Edinburgh for shipping, a piece which rings all my bells and ticks all my boxes and sent a shiver up my spine......

(haven't even got on the plane yet, we'll get there eventually)


 

Firing 14 - refiring most of firing 13

Another 5am start, pitch dark but starry. Gas burner on.
7am   100oC   gas up, weather is still, overcast and damp
9am   310oC   gas still on, damp wood, damp kiln, did not do a warm through yesterday, kiln steaming - low fat pots?
10am  480oC  gas off, hard work to keep this fire going. Am I tired? not really enjoying this
11am  616oC  south west breeze. Now the fire is more beguiling, it becomes a reason in itself to continue. The kiln has ceased steaming
noon   730oC
1pm    878oC   using large slab wood, strong s.w. breeze
1.30   1004oC  reducing for a good half hour
2pm   1024oC 
3pm   1088oC   first soda in. Cold s.w. wind blowing into fire mouth,
3.30pm              closed the big doors for shelter
4pm   1088oC    then at 4.05 up to 1126oC
5pm    1145oC
5.30    1165oC   Andrew stopped by, just to check that the flames were intentional
6pm    1166oC  
6.30    1200oC   cone 7 bending
7pm    1203oC   cone 8 bending, 7 down
7.30    1211oC
7.45    1187oC   cone 9 beginning, cone 8 down
8pm    1215oC
8.15    1220oC   cone 9 down, last big stoke, start clamming up the kiln, a few slivers of wood added during this.
9.15    1078oC

I didn't make a note of when I put the fire mouth door on, probably around 1000oC to assist the reduction. It made a big difference to the comfort of my knees which would be scalded without the door. It was along hard firing this one, the longest so far at 15 hours, damp wood, cold south westerly wind all having an effect. The rain held off. I thought that the wind in this direction would speed it up as it blows directly at the fire mouth, my perception is the opposite. Will have to try it again with drier wood.

happy kiln = happy potter,

  This was a much better firing, even though I could hardly walk the next day - 15 hours on concrete in the wrong shoes.
will post some results next.
I think this blog is getting repetitive, not enough crises with this kiln. By the look of the interior it will need a rebuild before the chimney wall slumps.
Meanwhile I have been planning an anagama firing at Higham Hall in Cumbria for November.

Firing 13 - lucky for some

But not for me!

Work to go in 

7am, 90oC after 2 hours, turn up the gas, cup of tea, breathe deep

Gorgeous day, Nice, easy and steady climb to 1200 then 15minutes of lost concentration and I never got it back above 1180. I knew the cones were telling me to keep going but after 13 hours the lure of fish and chips at the pub was too great (and there was a bit of applied pressure from R pushing me in that direction).

Lesson learned - instead of only another 2 hours to get to temperature I now have a whole 13 hour firing to do and on my own as R will be away. I think I'll go to 15 hours just to be sure. Have to say I'm hacked off. Not getting enough results to feed the passion. And to continue the misery, the kiln is showing distinct signs of ware, but that's another blog

Orton 7 8 9 & 10, obviously underfired, 9 should be well down

 However, I look at the photo of the sunrise and find there the consolation. 

Firing 13 in the planning

The frustration of not firing for a couple of months is getting to me. I find that I start to lose sight of what I am aiming for in my work. This time I am planning to fill the kiln with about 50% sell-able wares and fewer but more focused test pieces.

 We took delivery of the new iron framework (Caledonian Sheet Metal works in Inverness).  The kiln now has a detachable firemouth door and vertical supports at the corners. This should minimise some of the movement from firing and unbuilding for packing.  I suspect that a complete rebuild will be in order next year, at which point I might as well increase the size, it just isn't big enough.

 The door is a sandwich of fibre/kiln shelf/fibre, tin foil and weldmesh on the outer face. Two pieces of vermiculite board on the side which I dismantle for packing. We'll see how well that survives over time.
Isn't it smart? But......

Daylight between chimney hood and roof as the filler has burned out, letting the rain in of course.

Introduction to the kiln

I’ve had a growing interest in wood fired ceramics for a few years now but always assumed I would never be doing it myself. I live on an island off the west coast of Scotland – unpredictable weather, at its worst wet, windy, dark and cold. Not the best conditions for those 3 or 5 day anagama firings I had read about. It was Mr Top Pot Supplies at Potfest Scotland who dismissed my assumptions. His eyes lit up at the mention of the conditions ‘fast firing then’ he said.


Briefly, from the beginning –

I first encountered this type of kiln, whilst on holiday in the Czech Republic. My friend took me to visit some potters she knows near Cesky Krumlov who thought I might be interested in their new wood firing kiln, which they were building. Thinking this would be taking several days we didn’t hurry to get there and when we did we found the kindling already in the fire box. The kiln itself is small, footprint is 10 HTI bricks x 3 (exact measurements to follow), can be built in a day with no mortar, fires in day, cools down in a day and is generally an easy, uncomplicated entry into the wonderful world of wood firing.

We learnt that the kiln had been bought from a potter near Prague who puts together kits of the constituent parts. A package that doesn’t require too much thought. I had been rather daunted by all the books about kilns so this seemed perfect. Of course now it’s built it seems so simple and straight forward and I’m sure anyone with an interest could plan and build one with very little trouble.
We went to visit Pan Krajek (with translating friend) who explained about the kiln and apologised for not having one available as he thought he had sold as many as he could to all the potters in Bohemia. It took two more visits to collect all the parts due to the weight of bricks and the state of some of the roads and drive them back to where we stayed in Krumlov. Half of them came home with us and spent 6 months in the garden shed before we could collect the rest in May 2009.

Maintenance Man got to work and built a shelter in the garden for the kiln which in any other climate would have been a pergola but we’re on the Isle of Skye, on a hill, facing south west, the first to greet every weather system which comes across the Atlantic. The shelter is open to the north and east but protected by the hill which rises behind it, the south and west protected by a construction of corrugated plastic and plywood doors and the garden shed. It is roofed with corrugated iron, a hole cut for the chimney with an old barbeque hood to collect the smoke (some of it anyway, depending on wind direction).




The pictures here are of the kiln we saw in Cesky Krumlov. I’ll post images of the one we built in the next blog.