Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Some Random Photos

This past week I have been making a few pots and mostly just getting things ready to try out my reduction kiln converter. These four pictures are just some random pictures of what has been going on lately. This first picture is of a lidded bowl, or sugar bowl. Whatever you want to call it.















These are the ash test glazes for the first firing of the reduction kiln. I have some other tests that I am going to put in there but this is what I mixed up yesterday. They are pretty simple recipes and that's because I am not one of those potters who wants a ton of stuff in my glazes. It starts to get to a point where you are spending to much money on glaze material when there is only 1-2 percent in the glaze. Not worth it. These are all raw glazes and they contain somewhere between 20-30 percent clay. There are three different sets of tests each containing a different clay. The first is just OM 4 ball clay, the second is Ohio Slip, and the third is Redart. The Ohio slip is a clay similar to Albany Slip. For more information go to www.akclay.com. I am hoping I can get at least one good test from each set so I can make a couple of different ash glazes. I am planning on having an amber ash, temmoku, blue ash, greenish ash, and maybe a glossy opaque ash of some sort.
















Here is the Electric kiln reduction converter. I was supposed to get this is 4-6 weeks but about 4 days after I ordered it, it showed up at the front door.
















This is the Converter with the kiln on it. This kiln has another section but I am only using this whole kiln as a test kiln so I don't need a whole lot of room for many pots. I might do a shelf or two but that would be it. I just have to figure out how to work the thing now. The instructions aren't really all that good but I think I will be able to figure it out.





















Cheers.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Wow

Today I put a coat of adobe on the little test wood kiln that I built. I will post some Pictures of the kiln tomorrow. I finished putting the adobe on at 9ish so there wasn't very much light for a good picture. In other news I just found this video on youtube and it is awesome. The URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePDqNYcFWno. It is of two Jingdezhen potters throwing huge amount of clay together. Check it out.

Sheridan

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Follow up pictures part 1

Here is a picture of Christy happy to be stoking















Second chamber. Pretty light load.


































This is the big bottle after it was taken out of the kiln.















Nice bit of reduction.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Huge couple of weeks

This past week I spent helping Joe and Christy Cole up at the Windy Ridge Pottery in Wisconsin. It was a really cool experience for me because it was the first time I had really been around a larger wood fired kiln. I have been to Mark Hewitt's pottery in North Carolina and seen those kilns but I only spent about an hour all together around both kilns.

Our first project while I was there was to re coat the kiln with a new and improved adobe mix that contained some local red clay. The original coat looked sort of grey and boring and you can see that one below.




















The New coat on the kiln has so much character. It has a nice dark red to orange color due to local clay. The new coat of adobe held up pretty well during the firing. There were a couple of cracks in the first chamber but that didn't really seem to effect anything.















Here is the stack in the first chamber of the kiln. If you go to the Windy Ridge pottery blog you can see a couple of other pictures of the other chamber and the light stacking that it had. In the front of the actual stack there is a row of unglazed pots and to the right of the taller bottle in the middle is one of the pots that I was able to get into the kiln. Throughout the firing that bottle and almost everything to the right of the bigger bottle for some reason got knocked over.




















This picture is for Joe. On their blog they had a stokers gallery but Joe didn't seem to have a picture of himself. This picture is so perfect because Joe is stoking what looks like half of a tree into the kiln. That slab of wood lasted quite a while before it finally burned all out.















Here is that Bottle from one of the previous pictures. Some time during the beginning of the firing the taller bottle in the middle of the stack broke so Joe pulled it out of the kiln so the pots behind where is was sitting could get a little more ash. In the process I think my pot got knocked over but I'm pretty sure that wasn't really Joe's fault because it was teetering before he started poking around. It was about one or two hours before we stopped stoking in the first chamber that Joe decided that we should pull the pot out of the kiln so I could take it home with me. I didn't know exactly how well that was going to work but he assured me that everything would be fine. He told me that David Stuempfle does it all the time so I trusted him. Good thing I did because the pot looked pretty sweet for hanging out in the firebox most of the firing. I will post a picture of the next time I post.
















While at the pottery I found out how much I dont know about being a wood fired potter. I mean I am able to make the pots and all of that stuff but after seeing how much goes on and how much you really need to know about kiln design and function I figured that I needed a little more training. Joe and Christy helped me come up with a list of possible apprenticeships and/or residency opportunities. Hopefully something comes about. If anyone out there in blogger land knows of any good opportunities that will keep me close to a wood kiln I am all ears.

I also found out about a wood fired workshop while at Joe and Christy's but of course I missed the deadline by about 4 days. I thought I would try my luck and email the guy and lucky for me he still had a spot open so on Aug. 10th I will be making my way to Strawberry Point, Iowa for the workshop. It seems like an awesome experience because we will be building, loading, and firing a wood fired kiln based on a Korean design. It should be fun.

I will post some more pictures from Wisconsin soon. Until then.....

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Here are some pictures of my first wood kiln. As you can see I am probably breaking every rule when it comes to proper kiln construction but I had to work with what I had. For the floor I used some beat up and broken brick that I had and filled the cracks in with sand. On top of that I took three 2'x3' kiln shelves I had and set them side side making a 6'x3' floor. I then made a 4.5" wall all the way around and up 11 rows. I had some insulating brick so I used those up a little higher on the kiln because I started running out of hard brick. I finished the top of the kiln with 3 more kiln shelves. The stoke hole is on the side because I wanted to conserve kiln space and I didn't want to worry about getting a little to excited and knock over the bagwall. I have some intake air holed in the front of the kiln but there was not even close to enough of them. There was very little draft in the inaugural firing and I blame it on that. The exit flue might be a little small too, but those are quick fixes. I also have to add a layer of adobe over the whole thing so I can fill in some of the cracks and openings. I think that will help with the draft too. For this first firing I just wanted to see if the kiln would even work so we just tossed wood in for about an hour and we got it pretty hot. Maybe 1000-1200 degrees. Not certain but it got hot enough quick enough to crack one of the kiln shelves that is being used as the lid. I had a feeling that might happen but I was willing to take the chance. Anyway here are some of the pics.