Back from the dead?
Hmm. I was reading a friend's blog over here http://peakepottery.blogspot.co.uk and got to thinking maybe I should start a new blog on the same site. My present website host, Posterous, is set to close down at the end of next month and I need a new home.
I've not done any potting this year so far. I've been busy with other things and the weather has been very cold. However my aforementioned friend, Mr.Peake, has me wondering about clay once more. I've come to realise that one of the things that is deterring me is my kiln. It's just too big for me. Oh, I had grand plans for it. But plans and reality are all too often two different things. I think it's best to base predictions of future behaviour on past experience. I've never been someone who makes loads of pots, but I naively thought that having a big kiln might change that.
So I set to planning. I could take down my kiln and build a smaller one. Then it occurred to me that my plan would pretty much fit in the mouth of my present kiln. Thus I don't need to take the old one down. Just build a smaller one inside the old one. This looks genuinely doable to me and I'm getting quite excited at the prospect.
My compact kiln would be built to take one stack of my 2-foot by 1-foot kiln shelves. I'd have a firebox underneath and it would be downdraft. I'd add some soda painted on wood into the firebox.
This excites me because it means that I only have about 6 cubic feet of kiln space to fill, so I can fire regularly and learn through trial and error about wood-firing and soda firing. The problem with the old kiln is that it would take me ages to make enough work to fire it, plus all the work to prep the firewood. Far too greater an investment for what amounted to test firings. Firing it was a massive task which ceased to be a pleasure to be honest.
I've not done any potting this year so far. I've been busy with other things and the weather has been very cold. However my aforementioned friend, Mr.Peake, has me wondering about clay once more. I've come to realise that one of the things that is deterring me is my kiln. It's just too big for me. Oh, I had grand plans for it. But plans and reality are all too often two different things. I think it's best to base predictions of future behaviour on past experience. I've never been someone who makes loads of pots, but I naively thought that having a big kiln might change that.
So I set to planning. I could take down my kiln and build a smaller one. Then it occurred to me that my plan would pretty much fit in the mouth of my present kiln. Thus I don't need to take the old one down. Just build a smaller one inside the old one. This looks genuinely doable to me and I'm getting quite excited at the prospect.
My compact kiln would be built to take one stack of my 2-foot by 1-foot kiln shelves. I'd have a firebox underneath and it would be downdraft. I'd add some soda painted on wood into the firebox.
This excites me because it means that I only have about 6 cubic feet of kiln space to fill, so I can fire regularly and learn through trial and error about wood-firing and soda firing. The problem with the old kiln is that it would take me ages to make enough work to fire it, plus all the work to prep the firewood. Far too greater an investment for what amounted to test firings. Firing it was a massive task which ceased to be a pleasure to be honest.
posted by Paul Fricker at 8:54 am
4 Comments:
Nice lateral thinking there Paul. Good luck!
Have you thought about using a ceramic fibre liner to enclose your kiln within a kiln?
I'm planning on using salt / soda together with wood and I'm not sure how fibre would take to that - not well I think.
Anyhow, I have the bricks already so it seems like a no brainer.
Fair enough!
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