KILN WEEK FROM HELL!

Finally got my soda kiln fired after several glitches with bisque,, liner glaze problems and just plain clumsiness and equipment failures! Getting back to work after a year off due to a non working hip and then recovery from hip replacement surgery, has been a bit challenging, tiring and awkward at times. First there was hundreds of pounds of hard clay and reclaim clay to deal with as well as major studio cleanup to do before getting started throwing.
Throwing went OK other than dealing with clay I over softened; but it didn't take long to get those muscles back. Then there was the joy of getting all the slips and glazes remixed and sieved - another daunting task.
Loading the second of the two bisque kilns went fine, and then unloading the second bisque turned out to be a crashing experience, as one of the tall posts on one of the half shelves decided to topple as I was walking away from the kiln to put down another shelf. That little crash resulted in several cracked pots. No problem. I had extras. Then several bowls with a cream liner, which looked fine on application on a raw, dry pot (evenly watered it down quite a bit),cracked horribly in the Cone 03 bisque and was too fused to be removed -more lost pots.Then, while wadding and loading the soda kiln , a 9" half brick post toppled onto 3 small pots sitting on the kiln floor, waiting to be loaded - more broken pots! Suddenly my full kiln load was looking pretty sparse, so I went around the studio looking for a couple of likely candidates for re-firing.
There was a nice, large bowl among the likely candidates and that filled half a shelf, and I found a couple of old plates to glaze, so things were looking pretty good. Kiln finally got loaded, bricked up, with pilot burner on overnight. Next morning it was over 300 degrees and I proceeded with the firing, going nice and slow, as I always do. Around 550 I heard the explosion -fortunate that I was there to hear it!.
I turned off the kiln and had to wait the following morning to deal with it. Got up at 4am, walked the dogs, unbricked the kiln door to discover that it was the big refire bowl that was the culprit. The kiln gods weren't too cruel, as it was on one of the upper, front shelves, so I didn't have to unbrick the whole door - just the first 8 -10 courses or so. I was able to reach down to the floor to pick up some large chunks and was able to reach the likely places to remove chards that had settled inside of some pots. There were some shelves that had to be removed, and I had to re-apply some loose alumina hydrate and reload those shelves and brick her up again. By 7am I was back firing.
Great, I thought;but the kiln demons weren't done with me! Twice during the lower temperatures, the burners kicked off; but I was so tired that I had affixed myself to my camp chair in the kiln room and was there both times to re-start the burners immediately. Other than bathroom visits and one fifteen minute break to quickly gobble up the Kentucky Fried chicken dinner that Jim had brought home, I sat near the kiln. I wasn't taking any chances with how my kiln luck was going!
Well, at 2000 degrees, the kiln kicked off again, so I jet propelled myself out of my camp chair and quickly depressed the button on the safety valve. 10 minutes later, after multiple tries, those burners refused to go back on without me holding the button down. By now the pen hanging on my sweat shirt was burning me and my metal watch was burning my left wrist, and the water was dripping off my forehead at an alarming rate. So Iquickly released the numb finger on the button, closed up the ports (burned several fingers doing that), and damper ran into the house and screamed to Jim to call Shane. I quickly ran back to the kiln room, started the burners again, and they were kicking back (I forget thatI had the damper in and didn't remember until Shane got there!) But I at least got the pilot on and in about 10 minutes Shane showed up and determined what I had already figured out, that the basal valve was probably shot. He said it could also be the thermocouple in the pilot burner, so using his amazing strength and two large wrenches, he managed to take the thing apart and jerry rig his extra large C clamp to keep the pipe connections closed so Icould finish the firing.
By the time we got the kiln turned back on it had dropped to 1700F.
Another thing - the kiln had been firing hot at the top in past firings so I had Shane add to the chimney so that it would be about 3' higher the the roof peak. He also adjusted the bag wall earlier when he did some other work on the kiln and burners. Unfortunately,we probably should have only made one adjustment because the higher chimney did what I thought it would do - make the bottom hotter! The problem is that we also opened the bag wall a lot at the bottom, so it got a lot hotter! I wound up with cone 12 at the bottom left and on the opposite bottom at the read, with cone 10 barely starting in some places on top, and various levels of cone 10 and 11 in some other places.
Since it was already past my ideal peak temperature, I decided to accelerate the salting (I had already done some of the Nichols whiting/sodium bicarb mix and some wet soda ash applied to scrap wood pieces, and one salt burrito) and wound up throwing in 2 more salt burritos, a couple more angle iron doses of the Gail Nichols mix, and one round of spraying soda in about 8-10 ports. The draw tiles looked like I got some surface shine, so I'm hoping I put enough material to do the job. I have no idea how much salting material actually went into the kiln! In panic mode, and time being of the essence, I wasn't going to be fussy about weighing anything. At 2am after a much needed shower, washing and blow drying my hair (I smelled like a fireman after a day fighting fires!), I finally crawled into bed, convinced I should take up book binding or or some other less strenuous, less dangerous activity at my age.
I un-bricked the door a while ago and as I suspected, the pots are quite dark from the 3 salt burritos, and also too dry, which I also suspected, so there will be a lot of refires. One refire in the front looks great, so I imagine I can get these satisfactorily re-fired.. One plate has a couple of pieces of debris in it and that's one of the pieces I check earlier. It was clear then, so it's a major puzzlement where they came from.
I'm waiting for a delivery of my new video cam which is due tomorrow and I'll try to take some video of the kiln and then I'll unload it and see what we have.
Well that's the end of my woeful tale, if you've had enough stamina to read this novelette!

Till next time,
June

It was snowing at 5am and there was already a lovely, light coating of white on everything.It's 7:30 am and it's still snowing and judging the by sky, it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon.
I finished my wadding last night and will load the kiln after breakfast. I don't know if I'll fire it tomorrow or Sunday. It will depend on when I get some more test glazes finished.
A kiln shelf toppled on some bisque ware and broke a bunch pots as I was unloading, and a new, high clay liner glaze crawled horribly on a few bowls even though it was applied quite thin, so I'm hoping I still have enough pots to fill the kiln.
My friend Shane extended the chimney yesterday and put on a new metal cap that he fabricated. I'm hoping that couple of extra feet will help the draw so the kiln will fire more evenly.
Well, time for poached eggs, a healthy dose of vitamins followed by kiln loading!

June

Well, the studio is somewhat organized, at least organized enough to actually throw a couple of pots. My friend John Britt invited me to put some pots in his upcoming oil spot firing and that gave me the impetus to sit down at the wheel and see how it would go. I was concerned that my new hip might present a problem with throwing, but so far so good!
The garden weeds are taking over but I just couldn't stay out of the studio a minute longer to pull weeds! It's taking enough of my time processing all the veggies I planted! So I'm back to a regular studio schedule - finally!
We're having an incredible summer here in the mountains but the the local katydids that forewarn frost, have been making their noises for a couple of weeks now, so if it's true that they start their cacophony six weeks prior to the first frost, we may be getting that frost the beginning of September rather around mid October.
Well, lunch break is over and I'm heading back to work.

Till later,
June

Well, summer is going by so fast but at least now I'm able to work in the garden. After my hip replacement surgery in April, I had to wait 3 months before I could work in the garden or studio. Today will be my first day in the studio - a week later than I thought because my garden helper hasn't been able to come and I've had to focus my time and energy on catching up with garden work and trying to get back into a normal routine.
Since it's my first day back to work, it's going to be spent mainly organizing and cleaning up a studio that has been sitting idle all this time, reclaiming all the clay in the clay mixer and getting some machinery oiled and working. I need to figure out how to get the oil in the big new compressor for the extruder and maybe finally get the old oil out of the pugmill and new oil in so I can start using the de-airing feature. It's been sitting idle for a while until I could settle on one major clay body.
I should take a picture of the mess - before and after!
I'll try to post some pictures in the next day or so of the studio and garden.

THE NEW MASTER BEDROOM SUITE

Here are a couple of pictures of the new master wing I designed. Also, since my toddling around with a cane isn't conducive for physical labor, I've also been working on my web page. Here's the URL:

www.shambhalapottery.com

There are some photos in the gallery of the last firing.

Well, the new addition is done and looks fabulous; and it was completed just in time for this bad hip of mine. I'm having hip replacement surgery on April 8th, so full time studio work is going to have to wait until the summer.
I did get in the studio the other day to just throw some test tiles; but most of my time is not being spent taking 35 years of save glaze recipes (numbering over ten thousand now), and hand copying them into studier, hard cover notebooks.
As I'm going through these glazes, I've been adding more soda/slip slip and glaze recipes to the text files in the Yahoo soda/salt group I started a while back.

Well, it's been an amazing summer. Because of my injured hip we decided to add a first floor bedroom wing and that, the garden and pottery have been plenty to keep me busy.
I started a soda salt firing group on Yahoo for other soda/salt firers or anyone interested in vapor firing. The URL is:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sodasaltfiring


You have to be approved to participate and that is only to avoid spammers.

I just fired my kiln Friday and will be unloading tonight or tomorrow morning. Our dog Shanti has been fighting a massive eye infection due to an abcessed tooth and we need to get him to the vet again late this afternoon so he can have that tooth extracted tomorrow morning, so the kiln may have to wait until tomorrow to be unloaded.

I tried a new technique in this firing, using some salt along with the soda and a few ounces of borax, because my usual method of spraying the water/soda solution was not an option right now with all the hip pain I'm experiencing. So instead, I made a paste of the mixture and spread it on pieces of scrap wood and introduced them into the firebox.

From my peek into the kiln this morning, it appears that that was too much salt. Some of the pots are way too dark - sort of sewer tile brown - not what I would have expected on a white stoneware! It also looks like the area under some of the lids is lighter color, which is definitely not going to work. I'm assuming the salt did not hit there and those are going to be strange looking pots! At this point I'm wondering if firing them in the electric kiln at a bisque temperature might help brighten them, or if they will be a total loss.

I'll try to get some pictures taken of some of these pots and post them on the yahoo group and maybe here as well if I get the time.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Well, I'm finally getting back to work! My hip is still a mess,as a result of the bad fall which gave me a badly sprained ankle along with a possible stress fracture; but I can't sit and plant with this rain (which is the only physical activity I've been able to do since this happened), so I'm heading for the studio today to do some throwing - at last!
It's been an incredibly busy summer of planting while sitting, and planning our new first floor master suite. (If you missed the story behind the accident that started this project and your have a lot of time on your hands, you can scroll down for the details!) :-)
I thought I was almost done planting and then the earth moving machinery arrived last week along with the bad news that all the plantings I had put in on the hillside behind the house had to be dug up so they could grade. So now those plants are waiting for the first dry day for me to get started on the replanting!
Since I've been very antsy to get back to work, any planting is only going to be alloted an hour or two on any given day so I can get in studio time.
I also have a new EZCube and want to get a few more pictures of some pots to put up on my web site. That's the other thing I've been doing this past week - trying to redo the web site. I'm a lot happier with the home page now; but it will take a while to finish it. Wish I knew more about HTML so I could create the page that is in my mind!
The unintended consequence of the accident was that I had all this time to plant,since it was something I could do sitting down; and my garden is looking incredible this year with all the new plantings. This is year 2 for most of the garden and I'm amazed how well it's doing, especially since I lost so many roses due to the early summery weather followed by a hard frost which killed and badly injured many plants. Even the Japanese maples, a couple of other shrubs and some of the fruit trees which looked dead are showing signs of new life! So our losses weren't as great as we first thought. I will have to replace a couple of fruit trees; but that's all.
Well,that's it for this month. I'll try to get some garden pictures taken as soon as the sun comes out again and post them here. We've been getting a lot of much needed rain this week and last, which is most welcome!

It's been a crazy few months - heavy work cycle leading up to the December studio tour, post tour cleanup and then getting ready for Christmas. Right after recuperating from a month long virus in December (fortunately it hit me late Christmas day),in middle January I was getting ready to get back to work in the studio when a sad little dog showed up at our door step late one night. After a couple of weeks trying to find his owners, we realized that the universe had given us this sad, frightened, traumatized little terrier. If that wasn't enough for the little guy, our other dog decided that he was going to try to get rid of him by being downright nasty. Needless to stay, my hopes of getting back to work were put on the burner while I got this new member of our family, who we named Bodhi, acclimated to our household. I tried to take him into the studio; but the studio cat Shino,immediately determined he was an enemy interloper and started attacking him.
Since my husband is allergic to this homeless cat who adopted us last summer, we had no choice but to take the new family member back into the house and let the cat maintain reign over his domain (the studio) until they got to know each other better. That also meant that I had to stay close by until everyone got used to him and he got used to his new surroundings and new house mates.
It's obvious the little guy had been abused and even the presence of a fly swatter sent him into uncontrollable trembling. Now after a few months, he's settling in beautifully, even willing to fight back a little with his nemesis, our Lhasa Apso Shanti tries to bully him; but most times Bodhi makes every effort to avoid conflict and remains his sweet gentle, self.
The vet, after a series of tests, shots and thorough examination, said he was healthy and determined his ago to be about 1 1/2 to 2 years. So it looks like we can enjoy many more years with this little guy and the vet can take a nice week end getaway on our fee!
Since I couldn't get in any studio time, I got started early on my seed starting and now I'm up to my ears in vegetable and perennial plants which are taking a lot of my time and a lot of house space.
We had an unusually warm March to the point that trees and shrubs were blooming too early and then the deep freeze arrived. I managed to save a lot during that first freeze, covering pots with old boxes, quilts, remay - whatever I could get my hands on, but we lost a lot of this years crop from our fruit trees, some of which were totally denuded by the cold and we also lost some roses and perennials which I'm now in the process of replacing.
We were fooled into thinking that the unusual cold spell was over and we uncovered the plants several days later to find that we had saved a lot of them; but then a few days after that another hard freeze was forecast. I took a deep breath, ran up stairs to grab am armload of quilts hoping to at least cover some of the more tender things. Well, I was in such a rush, that I missed the last step to the landing, went flying and wound up with a severe ankle sprain. And the only saving grace was that the hard freeze didn't happen.
So, after a week on crutches, and sitting with my foot elevated and surrounded with ice packs, I'm now able to hobble a little, which is an improvement from the step, drag the injured foot,I was doing last week. I called it my "The Mummy" walk imitation; but I still can't get into the studio to stand and wedge. All I've managed to do it grab some clay and make a lot of cone packs! So I'm back to gardening which I can do sitting down and I'm getting a lot done. I'll try to take some garden pictures this summer and post them here.
I've given up all hope of making and firing pots for the spring tour; but the garden is filling up fast with all this planting. It also gave me time to do what was necessary to get the kitchen remodel finished (the last of the granite backsplashes will be done Monday).
I also had plenty of time to design our new bedroom wing. This accident was a big wake up call; and we decided that at our ages, a first floor master is definitely the way to go; and it's also just in time for our ten year old Lhasa who is now finding it frightening to go down the steps lately.
I got one of those EZCube setups right before the accident and I'm eager to try it, so as soon as I can I'll try it out and take some pictures of a few more pots from the last firing. In the meantime I'll keep planting until this foot heals and I can get back to the studio.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Here are a few pictures from the last soda firing. The top of the kiln is still too hot after a few bag wall and chimney adjustments, so I'm going to add at least another foot to the chimney to try to resolve this uneven firing.
It's been a very busy year of studio work and ongoing household and garden projects which will extend into 2007; but the house and studio and grounds are coming along nicely. I'm definitely looking forward to spring and the fruits of all my planting!
Got my new Wolf range installed a couple of days ago and now all that the kitchen needs are new counter tops and a new sink to be finished.
In the spring we'll be lifting part of the gambrel roof in the upstairs bathrooms and redoing them, so they'll be more user friendly to to the tall members of this family.

Hope everyone had a great 2006 and has an even better 2007!

June