Thursday, February 26, 2009

cooling the kiln

Day two of kiln cooling.
When we fire we always like to let the kiln cool at its own rate of speed. Which is two days no matter what the weather is or if you stand outside and blow on it. It just lumbers along cooling at its own rate of speed. The first 24 hours we leave it alone. No moving the bricks - no looking. we ignore it like a well behaved child.
Day two- today the flash lights come out. One of us will move a peep brick and take a look. Then we move another and take another look.
We always have the same discussion. "Do you think we could?"
"No", the other one will say- "just wait."
We think waiting is the best method to our madness. Even when we try to cool faster it is 9 or 10 pm before it could come out. And face it, we are not spring chickens anymore. I will confess I would rather get up with the chicken these days then stay up with the guards.
While the kiln is cooling there are two days to get other things done.
Sometimes we go right back on the wheel.
Other times we clean the studio and refresh everything- go get groceries- bookwork -read-watch a video....
I am handing building while Mark is working on odds and ends in the studio.
So today we will head out there and see who finds the flashlight first- time to take a peek!

5 comments:

Julia said...

I hate waiting for my kiln to cool! I always figure that it is a great opportunity to learn patience (which is much needed in my case)! That still hasn't stopped me from ruining a few pots by pulling the kiln open too early, mind you. I hate when you hear that tell-tale *ping* that means you ruined something in your impatience! :) Julia

Linda Starr said...

Hurry up and wait.

Shortstuff said...

See any seconds while peeking in with those flashlights? lol

Anonymous said...

It's good you each have someone else to hold you back.

cookingwithgas said...

today is the day and we have peeked in all the holes we can find- I see some good iron red and bits of other glaze which looks good!
as we all know some will be good some not so good and one or two will be great!