Hi August,
This is a fantastic amount of information, condensed into such a concise "essay". Gotta tell you right off, that I think maybe you should be writing a book on this! You have mentioned some really neat ideas which I've never even thought of, like building a "kiln" around a large piece that must be fired "in situ".
Now, I'll try to comment on a few of the points that you've raised about the different kilns.
First, I've looked at lots of different kilns over the years but have never taken "the leap" of buying one, because I always end up feeling confused about the capabilities and drawbacks of each. These are some of the thoughts and questions which I've had about each of the types of kilns that you've mentioned.
Electric Kilns:
Electric seemed more stable, but as you have mentioned, it seemed to have limitations. I have rarely seen production work that I really liked, coming from electric kilns, with one possible exception. The glazes never seemed that interesting, and now I understand why after reading what you have written about them. Also, I knew that an electric kiln would require some HD wiring and I didn't really feel comfortable about having a kiln in our basement, which is the only real area where that kind of wiring would be practical and currently possible. I have a studio building, but it isn't wired to the level that would support wiring for a kiln. So, I had pretty much dismissed that possibility. One more drawback... a point which I don't know much about... is energy consumption. I am assuming that an electric kiln must require a lot of energy during the course of a firing. Am I wrong in thinking that? Have you got any idea of how much a firing would cost at average electric prices??
Gas Kilns:
This is more along the lines of what I was thinking of. We don't have access to natural gas out here in our part of the country (it's starting to appear in our area now, but not near our farm). So, I would be looking at a propane-fired kiln. I guess that my main concern with a gas-fired kiln was safety. I'm thinking gas, high sustained heat levels, etc... and was concerned about the safety of such a beast... (o: Also, gases from the kiln, off-gassing from glazes, etc... so this seemed like something that I would definitely want to locate out in the yard rather than inside of my studio. When visiting the studio of other potters, I have noticed that quite a few of them have their kilns located out in auxiliary sheds or even just out in the yard behind their buildings. I've also noticed that a lot of the larger kilns that I've seen look sort of homemade, but I can understand why after reading what you've written. Seems like it would be possible to construct your own. However, I guess that's where the "safety" factor seemed to raise some questions in my mind. I didn't know if I could actually build a kiln that would be relatively safe to operate, but then, when I read what you said about one-time kilns, I was thinking, "Heck, this may not be quite as difficult as I think it is!".... (o:
I am, however, curious about what you said about the "life" of a kiln and its durability. How long do kilns last? Like, how many firings can the firebricks/insulation bricks take before they are destroyed? I'm assuming that that's the weak link in the chain...or is it more to do with the gas burners, etc??? Also, are there any special safety considerations that a person should be keeping in mind in regard to building/maintaining a kiln, in order to prevent possible disasters? I've worked with gas a lot... mainly in relation to metal work, and for the most part, it was always relatively safe so long as pilot lights didn't get blown out. I worked in a shop where we had about 4 stations for working with propane torches and we had these burning all day long on and off, with propane pilot lights next to our work areas. Only thing that used to happen was sometimes that you'd turn on the air instead of gas on your torch and blast out the flame on your pilot light... lol... Didn't happen too often though... usually just on Monday mornings after a wild weekend of partying... (o: Uhm...the other question I had, once again, was how much it would cost to run a fairly decent sized gas kiln on propane. How big a propane tank should you have. I've noticed some pretty big tanks sitting outside of some pottery studios, so I'm assuming that it takes a lot to do a firing(??)
Okay, let's see... back to the topic at hand.
Wood Kilns:
Surprisingly, or perhaps maybe not so surprisingly, this was indeed something I was wondering about. You see, we have a lot of forest here at our farm and we're currently looking at selling this place and relocating even further away from civilization (Yah... I know... YIKES!!!), on a place with even more forested area. When you have as much forest as we have here, you always have plenty of firewood around if you try to keep up with the deadfalls that happen in a large bushlot. I was just back cleaning up some trails a couple of weeks ago and thinking, "Man-o-man there is one heck of a lot of wood back here that could be burned." However, I usually just toss it off to the side of the trails as I can't burn all of it and don't feel like getting into the firewood biz as a lot of this isn't the kind of wood that people are looking for for their stoves.
Anyhow, I was thinking of how, so much wonderful traditional pottery pieces have been fired just using wood, so I was thinking this might be something to look into. I haven't found too much info on it so far, but this might actually be something I will think about pursuing further. I'm guessing that there would be some interesting technical problems associated with wood kilns though.... maybe having to do with "control and consistency" as you have emphasized. I know that with wood-fired baking ovens, there is quite a bit of variability...which is why bread comes out a little different in each batch. However, I'm also thinking that that might be nice in some cases...like the glazing effects could start to be interesting, no?
Raku Kilns:
Okay now! This is another area of big interest with me. I've been at studios when raku firings were taking place and this actually looks like a lot of FUN and EXCITEMENT!! I am thinking that this might be something that I could really get into. However, I guess I would still need another kiln of some kind to get pieces to the bisque stage... perhaps that is where a wood-fired kiln could be part of the whole program.
Again, I had noticed that most of the raku kilns I've seen were homemade jobbies... Have also noticed that people who do raku often seem to work in pairs or more... haven't really seen anyone doing this kind of work alone as it seems that there is a lot of one guy lifting something up, while someone else is using tongs to move stuff around, etc... Lots of cooperative effort. But what I love about raku is that element of "surprise"... Seems to me that it would be a bit like digging up buried treasure when you start uncovering a piece at the end of a firing. As you said, that's when the "magic" starts to happen. That's what I've noticed when I've been at the odd firing... The people doing the firing are often just about as surprised as the people who came to watch. It looks like it would be a gas to do.
Anyhow, now I have lots more to think about. This feels like a "serious direction" for me to go in. As you probably know, I work in a lot of different mediums,..everything from paint, ink, computer graphics...to wood and metal. I like wood a lot, but it has its limitations. I'm hoping to start doing some work with stone this winter....have been collecting native marble and other native rock in my region over the summer and hoping to do a bit of experimentation with it over the winter. Metal is really neat as it is a both a subtractive and an additive creative process... cutting away of metal but then adding back on elsewhere. Clay is more along that line, but so much more organic... more responsive to human contact. For what I've been thinking about lately... the direction of my work... I think clay would be a good medium to be working with for the next while.
Thanks for writing out all of the notes on kilns. And yes, I'm hoping that we can keep on with this discussion. I'm curious about all of the points which you've mentioned about glazes and how they respond to different firing techniques. Again, this is an area where I just haven't had enough experience to know what to expect. I've done a fair bit of sculpting in clay, but as I didn't have my own kiln, it wasn't practical to experiment with glazes. THat's one of the main reasons that I would like to have my own kiln... as I feel it is important to have control over my work from beginning to end... otherwise, it seems pretty pointless.
Thanks again for this discussion.
croc |
