Friday, December 10, 2010

Hooray!


...It worked! 

Well, more or less. At 5 am, with ▲10 beginning to bend, the burners began to lose pressure. I feel pretty confident that it was enough, as most of my glazes will go at ▲9, and these had the additional nudge of 5 lbs of baking soda and soda ash; plus a 1/2 pound of salt for good measure. 

So, good news and bad: the good news: well obviously. Also, the kiln appeared to be pretty even and easy to keep in a deep or light reduction. The bad news: this was a crazy-long firing, 15 hours, and in the end the cone did not entirely fall. (It still might have done; the gauges read that the burners were losing pressure, but the difference was undetectable just by observing the flames.) 15 hours is unacceptable, of course, but it now just seems like a matter of tweaking. Another foot or two on the stack, and proceed more quickly in the early bit of the firing, or...any other suggstions?

I plan to spend most of today in bed, reading The Physics of Superheroes. Unloading will be Saturday, photos Sunday, if all goes well.  

4 comments:

Craig Edwards said...

Great news! Getting the damper setting just right could help... sometime a 1/2" one way or the other can make a difference.
Cheers
~Craig

Lori Watts said...

Thanks Craig -- I will keep that in mind once I've seen the pots, to judge whether my reduction could have been lighter.
I kept the passive dampers closed for almost the whole firing. I am thinking that the kiln might fire more efficiently if I utilzed them for the body & glaze reduction phases, instead of pushing the active damper in.

DirtKicker Pottery said...

I can't wait to see your results :)

Sue Pariseau Pottery said...

Yah!!!!!!!!