Leroy, October 24
Just realized today is the 24th. Only 3 months till my birthday, at which time I will be 36 years old. Yup, much closer to 40 than 30. Not sure how I feel about that. Anyway, on to more important things....
Shawn (my newest renter) and I cranked out a load of pots over the last couple of weeks, and I'm firing them today in the gas kiln. A little info on the kiln:
The kiln is named Leroy, 'cause he's bad, bad. He's a 24 cubic foot (stacking space) downdraft with 2 power burners and a roll-away door. I built him 3 years ago, and he's firing great. It took me about a dozen firings to get all the minor bugs out (small cold spot and such), and now he's virtually perfect- even to within a half cone top to bottom, and no bad spots. I am thinking about increasing the bag wall height an inch or two just to see if I can even out that 1/2 cone difference. I do get the occasional odd firing, but I can usually trace it back to how the load was stacked. I just have to make sure he isn't loaded with a tight top and loose bottom. The burners are homemade Alpine type, with 70 cfm blowers, Baso valves and electric solenoids. The control panel has a shutoff timer, analog high temp shutoff controller, and speed controls for the blower. The whole system, gas and all, can be shut down with the flip of a switch, which is really nice, especially if there's ever an emergency. I just got a new Watlow digital high limit shutoff controller that I'll be installing soon, so I'm very excited about that. The current analog controller is junk.
Today's firing stacked beautifully, nice and tight, and has been firing great thus far. I'm at about cone 6 right now, and the bottom is just slightly ahead of the top. Pretty normal, and not an issue. It'll all even out at the end. Looks like it'll be about a 9 to 9.5 hour firing. Pretty typical for a load this tight. I generally fire pretty quickly at the start, only taking 3 hours to get to body reduction. Then I reduce for 45 minutes, stalled out, then let it climb in a light reduction till cone 10 is down. Then I stall it out again in a clean oxidizing atmosphere for about 15 minutes before I shut it down. I didn't use to do the oxidizing ending, but then I started firing copper reds, and it made for much better color. Without the cleanout, I was getting some muddy, grayish lips on my pots. Now they are nice and white.
It'll be Friday before I can get the door open to unload. This kiln cools very slowly. I built it with BNZ PA26 IFB's, which are coarser and slightly heavier than normal soft brick (cheaper), so they hold the heat more. I like it, though, because I get great crystal growth on my tenmoku. I'll post photos after I unload.
Shawn (my newest renter) and I cranked out a load of pots over the last couple of weeks, and I'm firing them today in the gas kiln. A little info on the kiln:
The kiln is named Leroy, 'cause he's bad, bad. He's a 24 cubic foot (stacking space) downdraft with 2 power burners and a roll-away door. I built him 3 years ago, and he's firing great. It took me about a dozen firings to get all the minor bugs out (small cold spot and such), and now he's virtually perfect- even to within a half cone top to bottom, and no bad spots. I am thinking about increasing the bag wall height an inch or two just to see if I can even out that 1/2 cone difference. I do get the occasional odd firing, but I can usually trace it back to how the load was stacked. I just have to make sure he isn't loaded with a tight top and loose bottom. The burners are homemade Alpine type, with 70 cfm blowers, Baso valves and electric solenoids. The control panel has a shutoff timer, analog high temp shutoff controller, and speed controls for the blower. The whole system, gas and all, can be shut down with the flip of a switch, which is really nice, especially if there's ever an emergency. I just got a new Watlow digital high limit shutoff controller that I'll be installing soon, so I'm very excited about that. The current analog controller is junk.
Today's firing stacked beautifully, nice and tight, and has been firing great thus far. I'm at about cone 6 right now, and the bottom is just slightly ahead of the top. Pretty normal, and not an issue. It'll all even out at the end. Looks like it'll be about a 9 to 9.5 hour firing. Pretty typical for a load this tight. I generally fire pretty quickly at the start, only taking 3 hours to get to body reduction. Then I reduce for 45 minutes, stalled out, then let it climb in a light reduction till cone 10 is down. Then I stall it out again in a clean oxidizing atmosphere for about 15 minutes before I shut it down. I didn't use to do the oxidizing ending, but then I started firing copper reds, and it made for much better color. Without the cleanout, I was getting some muddy, grayish lips on my pots. Now they are nice and white.
It'll be Friday before I can get the door open to unload. This kiln cools very slowly. I built it with BNZ PA26 IFB's, which are coarser and slightly heavier than normal soft brick (cheaper), so they hold the heat more. I like it, though, because I get great crystal growth on my tenmoku. I'll post photos after I unload.
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