Loading and Firing the Gas Kiln

Bruce looking into the kiln as it fires

We are firing the kiln today, finished loading it last night in good time, meaning we had it on by 9:30pm.  Bruce woke early this morning at 5:45am to turn it up.  So far so good--we are two hours ahead than the last few firings, hopefully it will be smooth sailing. Often the kiln can stall out at the higher temperatures.

In between checking the kiln every 30 minutes, we watch a Ted Talks. Just finished watching Malcolm Gladwell talk about spaghetti sauce. 

Below, Bruce is loading his shino glazed ginger jar.  The surface of the glaze gets very powdery and delicate as it dries and he has to be careful how he holds and loads, in order not to damage the surface.

Bruce holding his shino glazed covered jar

We have many cups in this firing, an object that everyone should have many of in their household.  We were just talking this morning about where can we put up more cup shelves in our house and show-off our ever growing cup collection.

Samantha loading some cups into the kiln

Bruce worked on a couple of jars that he put a glazed skull on. 

A close-up, note the skull on top of the flying saucer covered jar

Unfortunately one of them kaboobled and fell off in the kiln. Whacked the bag wall and broke into many pieces. We played around with it for awhile trying to see if there was something we could come up with from the accident, trying to make lemonade out of lemons, but alas we decided that we would save the jar for the next firing and make another skull to put on top.

Bruce's kabobbled and broken skull

 Bruce is bricking up the door. Oh how we want a door on hinges that we can just close at the end of the loading. One day.... we will build a kiln with a door, but for now we will stack the door one brick at a time.  We must admit that it is fun to un-brick, as we slowly reveal the finished pots.

Bruce bricking up the door to the gas kiln