You're fired!

Yes, the firing is done. Finished this afternoon and toasted with some quality ale.

I'm very happy with how the firing went, the kiln was really responsive. It stuck a little a couple of times but was pretty easy to get a good steady temperature rise in a constant reduction - thanks to the trusty blowhole there...

Thanks to Andy for all his help, especially with the graveyard shift and helping to coax down the cone 12 at the front. After 30 hours all cone 12's were down with the cone 15's still standing.

The sun is shining in a pure blue sky.....

....the kiln is packed and bricked up and ready to go.

This is a view from the firebox of the front packing space. The next image is of the side chamber just as I was beginning to brick up. Everything in the kiln is made from clays that I have crushed and prepared and glazed with mixtures of rocks I have collected apart from 2 lonely mugs (got to have a couple of mugs for Hatfield!)

It's taken about three solid months of work to get everything ready for this firing, whereas in the past, with prepared clays etc, it would've taken me about a month. As long as this sun and breeze continues the wood stacks should be good and dry for firing next week. hooray!

Well it's been ages since my last post.....I've been busy. crushing compacted clays and mudstones, blunging and ball milling, making my own grog, preparing clay bodies and finally weeks of making. Some of these clay bodies are pretty difficult to work with so far too tedious to film or write about. I've had far more success with them in the biscuit firings so the various grogs seem to be working. Then plenty of upper arm development with rock crushing and grinding and finally I am ready for glazing.

sadly no Leicestershire pots in this firing as these rocks do not like the wood kiln (it takes all sorts!) but some new additions from my trip up to Dumfries and Galloway. I'm really looking forward to see how they react to the firing. It's another slow painstaking process. Difficult to apply glazes and each piece needs to be coded so that I can draw up a map of the kiln pack and keep track of what's what. Hopefully firing the week after next so more soon....

Tests are out of the kiln

This is one of the test tiles fresh out of the kiln - as shown in the previous post. It's a series of lineblends of 5 different rocks from Galloway. The top two are very exciting (for me!). Collected from different places but the rock looks identical. It is an intrusion of very low iron granite. 3 and 4 are two different granites - 4 was intruded at the same time as the Lake district granite that I have on my website, but both are strikingly different. Much higher in iron and not, at first tests, that different from the very dark (when collected) granodiorite in 5.

Rock tests from D & G

I"ve taken a quick break from making and done some tests on the rocks I collected from Dumfries an Galloway last month. This tile is a series pf simple lineblends on 5 of the igneous rocks I found. Firing Saturday.

throwing and distorting

It's been a fantastic week. Solid making making making. Love it!
Here's a film of me making one of my new forms.

Making and burning

Is this the summer? Please let there be more after the traditional Easter cold spell.
With the sun on my face I've been crushing Scottish mudstone ready for the ball mill, crushing secondary kaolin and (far more enjoyably) actually making some work for the next firing.

This clay is the high carbon (coal) Devon clay that I pictured earlier. It's still pretty coarse and therefore difficult to work with - hence the burner. This piece is only about 40cm tall but needed to be made in 4 stages. Film coming.