Saturday, March 5, 2011

Results of firing #2 in the new smaller kiln named little bit*#...

a first look
door down

door part way down
 I just asked mark what we are going to call this kiln and his response was he is calling it little bit*#... because she seems to have a way about her that just makes one feel... well feel like she is in control of things.
The firing went well enough but this much I will tell you:
It went too long- about 16 hours- we should be able to fire this kiln in less time.
It wanted to stall and played hell at the end of the fire and it took some real messing to keep thing going up.
We bent a cone 11 at the top right but only bent a 9 at the bottom.
We put some cones all over the kiln and from the second bottom shelf up things look pretty good.
The bottom shelf was not as cold as the first firing but still not great.
I have set aside about 1/2 the pots from that shelf to fire again.
With all of this said we are happy with most of the pots that came out and the best thing is the kiln is small enough to do another firing pretty soon.
With some fine tuning.
What is the plan for firing number 3?
Replace back bunner.
Open bottom up to 7 or 8 inches from 6 inches.
Use different glazes on the bottom shelf.


And just keep working it until maybe we call call her little darling.
M


13 comments:

Anna M. Branner said...

Makes my new electric (my first) kiln seem not so daunting....Gas is so COOL though!

Judy Shreve said...

Don't you just love that Mark knew she was female -- lol!
Those are some pretty nice pots for a first firing -- :)

Tracey Broome said...

When Wes was in 8th grade her friends started using a lot of profanity. Wes does NOT like profanity so instead of the word bit#*, they would call someone that was a bit#* a Beyonce. That was when her friends didn't like Beyonce, so we still use that name for replacement of the other word so Wes doesn't get mad at us.
You could call your kiln Beyonce :)
Those pots look really nice to me....

Laurie said...

Wow! Didn't realize how complicated the process is.

Sylvia N. said...

I had a problem with that sort of uneven stuff, and raising that bottom set really made a difference. Good luck getting to know your new girl....it always takes a relationship to get them to put out nicely! Love the pots you posted! Great start!

Hollis Engley said...

I agree with Tracey. The pots look pretty good from this angle. But if you can even it up you'll no doubt be happier.

FetishGhost said...

Those look great, but we all know "look'n great" and "being great" are 2 totally different things when you can pick up the work. The Bit*# will brighten up with driving. She is a beauty.

Gary's third pottery blog said...

looks pretty damn awesome to me :)

laura weant johnson said...

beautiful!!!!

ang design said...

what an awesome kiln :)) hope you enjoy the learning curve..

Linda Starr said...

rabbit, rabbit.

cookingwithgas said...

We will tame her wild ways soon! Rabbit Rabbit Linda!

Anonymous said...

looks like some good pots in there. i totally missed it until i read tracey's comment. i thought you were gonna call it the little bit. i figured those marks were some kind of html remnants. don't drink beer before reading blog posts