Ashley Howard and Graham Ellerby oversee the works
The 'Chequered Floor'
The 'Hypocaust' under-floor flue space
Interior - floor nearly installed
Exterior of kiln, right hand stoke hole filled in and arch repaired, first bit of extra cold face insulation blanket on the exterior of the arch
'Hypocaust' chequered kiln floor going in
Looking across to the enlarged fire box, new fire bar on the floor, bag wall half built
Bag wall built and fire bars in
Fire bars just after installation. They took a hammering in the firing in fact. No image of this but they will need to be replaced with more permanent ceramic ones when we are able.
Beginning of pack
Next level. Note the staggering of the kiln shelves heights
The back of the pack completed
Front of pack complete
Top front of pack and Orton cones 07,7,8,9 and10 as temperature guages
Base front of pack, note base cones too
Top cones after firing - cone ten at the back going (NB will pack them in reverse so highest is at front next time)
Base cones after firing - note cone 10 fell over - more care needed in setting!
Pack post-firing, door just opened. Very hot!
Craggy deposits - not due to ash I hasten to add. Put there deliberately
Looking down on Gareth's three pieces, front base
Top of stack, note cones and colouration of the piece on its side, due to ash deposits. This piece was not glazed.
Detail looking across the top of the stack - good even temperature evident from glaze melt.
More detail - note ash deposit on dog sculpture (by Susan Halls, who was a visiting lecturer at Farnham some weeks ago)
Centre of the pack
Orli's hand - glaze runs. Had to chisel this one off.
Sam's celadon and copper red bowl - good reduction developed the red well in this part of the kiln.
This view gives a good view of the enlarged packing space having lost the right hand fire box (excellent idea from Graham Ellerby)
Note the glaze runs on Ashley's jar piece (left). His was a 1260 glaze, over fired. The piece is OK incidentally - a bit of grinding and all was well.
Note the bottom right piece, by Jake, 2nd year student. Very iron rich reclaim body went deep toasted colour and it was an ash magnet, even tucked away at the back.
Cones at the extreme bottom right, went well, showing the relative evenness of the firing. This represents a major success of the re0design.
Sam's Shino glaze (on the bowl, left) developed well but needed to be thicker.
Julie's cast white earthenware bottles took the temperature well and responded to the ash with subtle blushes.
The wares revealed
Orli's Kiln Art
The ever dependable and excellent Eric with his mighty chopper. There is a LOT of work preparing wood. Eric's input was heroic.
Orli Ivanov, woman of mystery!
A bit of serendipity created a sculpture as the face piece sagged onto the bottle and the shelf shards that supported it. Orli entitled this one, 'A Good Night Out'
Stoking regularly toward top temperature. A couple of chunky bits and three or four 'slims' seemed to do the trick. The kiln had so much more to offer and could have gone much higher in temperature. Great to know there is 'more in the tank'.
Ash pit glowing
Nice reduction flame.
Some little ones visited - spreading the word about wood firing. They were great at stoking.
A well earned rest - Jules, Robert, Graham and Gareth (Robert did a lot of wood prep on the day).
Top temperature - surprisingly accurate.
Relief and grins all round. Note the rock wool outer insulation - another inspired bit of input from Graham (background), our Guru.
More grins from the pyromaniacs
A moment of congratulation between Gareth and Sam, positively glowing with pride. Note the extra cold face insulation, which did a great job. Note also the kiln's name ceremoniously scrawled in charcoal on the door - we christened her BERTHA!
