I've been reading "The Kiln Book" by Frederick Olsen, in my spare time this week (what spare time??). I got to this one part on p. 54, where he is quoting from "A Potter's Book" by Bernard Leach. I have to admit that it made me laugh, but also made me feel like I really want to proceed with this wood kiln project..er..."experiment"... Yeah, I know.. most people would read this and go, "WHAT!! ARE YOU NUTS ??!!" -- but to me, this sounds like a fun kind of challenge worth putting the time into.
The firing is the climax of the potter's labor. In a wood-fired kiln of any size, it is a long and exhausting process. Weeks and months of work are at stake. Any one of a dozen things may go wrong. Wood may be damp, flues may get choked, bungs of saggars fall, shelves give way and alter the draughts, packing may have been too greedily close, or for sheer exhaustion one may have snatched an hour's sleep, handing over control to someone else and thereby altering the rhythm of the stoking. At white heat things begin to move, to warp and to bend, the roar of combustion takes on a deeper note -- the heavy domes crack and tongues of white flame dart out here and there, the four-minute stokes fill the kiln shed with bursts of dense black smoke and fire. Even in the East, where hand work is usual and labor specialized, a big kiln firing has the aspect of a battlefield where men test themselves to the utmost against odds."
Great stuff -- sounds like a gas!! <gg> Also, Olsen gives an interesting description of his own firing of a wood/oil kiln on page 162-3... a couple of the lines at the end of his account reminded me of your notes to yourself at the end of the glaze firing a couple of weeks ago...
Message 17118283
Olsen wrote:
A half-hour later, after a total of twenty-three and one-half hours of firing, the kiln was finished. The oil was shut off and the fire boxes were plugged up with clay. The blowholes and chimney were closed; all wood and other inflammable materials around the kiln were cleared away. I stepped out of the kiln shed, tired and exhausted. As the cold night air relaxed me, I wondered if everything went right. Did chamber 1 cool too fast in the switch to chamber 2? It seemed as though everything went wrong. I would find out forty-eight hours later when the kiln would be cool enough to open.
I am thinking that, perhaps, some of the feelings of doubt at the end of a firing may be part of the thought process.... guess I'll have to find out for myself.. (o: |
