The inaugural firing has taken place!!!!…the build up was a time filled with excitement and anxiety. I am so pleased to report that temperature was reached with cone 12 just about touching its toes and was so even throughout. I started with a very small fire on day 1 and by evening the temperature was reading around 90 degrees C. Throughout the night, every 2 to 3 hours I stoked a little more wood to keep the warmth happen and to thoroughly dry everything out. The following morning the kiln was reading just over 300 deg. C and it was ready to go. The firing finished around 9pm.

Such mixed emotions when unpacking a kiln…excitement to see whats inside and a feeling of being overwhelmed with expectations compared with results on hand. One needs time to digest the results. The kiln has produced some beautiful surfaces with good reduction, glaze melt together with some surfaces which make you questions why and how did that happen?

This is what feeds my curiosity to keep woodfiring…

During this past week 16-22 September 2019 I have been building a new kiln based on a catenary arch design with the help of Gyan Daniel Wall.

The kiln is constructed with firebricks on the hot face backed up by commons and insulating bricks. The arch is double brick construction with back-up fibre insulation, a covering of chicken wire before an adobe ‘cob’ style mud covering.

A fire grate has been installed so as to keep the hardwood suspended while burning.

My thoughts behind this kiln is that I wish to obtain soft quite glazed surfaces from the back of the kiln while those on the hotface will be subjected to direct flame and ash. I am anticipating on firing for 30+ hours depending on stack and wood.

Inaugural Firing

New Kiln Construction