Fire It Up

Finished loading the kiln last night, ready to get the fire going. I'm headed for a few hours sleep this evening, then up at midnight to get it rolling. Forecast for the train ride is 24 hours of firing after a chilly overnight start. Thankfully a little help from some friends will trickle in, Tracy Dotson will make his first appearance up here in the morning to give me a brief break from the overnight. Apparently he is excited about standing around a wood kiln for a little while. I have received confirmation from Captain Conepack that he will indeed arrive in the evening to help ‘bring it on home' through the rest of the night. Lots of plates in the kiln this time, as well as a few of the square bottle forms I've been working on.

I've been thinking a lot of the kiln firing process lately, ever since I fired the little soda "converta-kiln" last week.  Looks like I might get to fire it again next week if there are enough student pots.  The first firing proved informative and I'm ready with a list of small changes to make to improve the results.  Joy wrote a nice summary of the building of the little thing, and soon as my firing here is over I'll try to add something about the project and the results.

But for now there is a train getting ready to pull out of the station so I better hop on.