I left right after work on Wednesday
afternoon and arrived at our motel at 7:30. Kathy and I got up early
and went to glaze and load the kilns on Thursday and turned the kilns
on low and slow overnight to preheat. There were various issues with
this round of firing. The cone packs in the soda kiln blew up during
the preheat, so we were flying a bit blind. Aaron found us an optical
thermographer called the Cyclops. He was not sure how to use it, so
had one of the train kiln operators from the old IXL brick factory to
come over and trouble shoot it with us. As this was our only guide
for temperature, we used it as well as colour in the kiln. By the
time a witness cone bent in the salt kiln we had finished adding the
soda, so that was pretty much a shot in the dark. We took a reading
when cone 7 bent, and it looked like the “cyclops” was out by a
hundred degrees or so. I think we were slightly underfired in the
soda, but got some decent results. The salt was much better, although
it could have used a bit more salt. In total, we added about 6 pounds
of soda ash, and 14 pounds of salt. I did not take many pictures
during the firing as it is too hard to do that when there are only 2
of us. If I could find a way to grow a 3rd arm, that would
help. I would look weird though.
As to the weight loss, it was all
sweat. The temp in Medicine Hat on the day of the firing was about 31
degrees Celsius (87.8 F). Without the kilns it was pretty darned hot
out. The kilns themselves were at about 2385 F or so at top temp. We
were a little limp with the heat by the end of the day. While we were
waiting for the salt kiln to reach salting temp (it took until 9 pm
or so), we ordered a pizza, around the time the pizza was to arrive,
a torrential downpour sprang up. So we had heat, lightning, thunder,
rain and pizza.
All in all I think the firings were OK.
The soda was a bit dry in spots, but the salt was relatively juicy.
There were some really nice glazes in this firing. I had some
excellent carbon trapping in a Malcolm Davis shino, some good colour
development in the yellow salt glaze, and some really lovely pink
halos and blushing on the insides of some of my rice bowls where I
used the Andrew Wong Lustre glaze. That glaze can come out quite
boring and white if not reduced enough (?), but this time, I think we
had good reduction. Not too much, just enough.
Oh ya, I also saw the Medalta International Cup Show. The labels had not been put up yet, but I was able to recognize quite a few potters. There were several of Jim Gottuso's yunomis and beer glasses, a couple of cups from Zygote, a wall piece from Mindy Andrews and a ton of others that I just can't recall the makers of off the top of my head. There was stoneware, porcelain, low fire, high fire, salt, soda, functional and not so functional, etc etc...Very good show. Great job Carol for picking all of these amazing cups.
