I was very pleased to see that a kiln god has shown up in my garage this morning. As you can see, it is bearing an appropriate degree of irreverence over the upcoming (inaugural) firing of my pottery kiln this afternoon. I am trusting that he/she will see to it that everything goes smoothly (please) ;)
This firing was actually just a trial run. There wasn't any pottery in the kiln today, just kiln furniture, witness cones, and the small kiln sitter cone. The main objective of this firing was to test the kiln sitter (an automatic shut-off device) and to see if there are any hot spots or cool spots inside the kiln. It was actually a pretty quick firing. From the time I turned the switches on, to the point when the temperature hit cone 04 (a little over 1900 degrees F, probably) only three hours had passed. I was impressed... and surprised. I went out to the garage and saw that it had shut down, and I though something had gone wrong. Then I noticed that the kiln sitter had been tripped, and I looked through the peep hole and the cones that I could see, looked just like they were supposed to look. I think I did a little happy dance at that point (ha). The temperature in the garage rose 8 degrees in those three hours, even as evening was settling in. At 3:30, when I turned it on, it was 72 in the garage, and it was 80 in there by the time the kiln shut down. There's some serious heat going on there. Gabriel will love that during the winter months. Tomorrow morning I will open up the kiln and check the results. That's when I'll know for sure how it went. THEN... I will be able to fire my first load of pottery! The beginning of a great, creative adventure. Pretty dang cool.
This firing was actually just a trial run. There wasn't any pottery in the kiln today, just kiln furniture, witness cones, and the small kiln sitter cone. The main objective of this firing was to test the kiln sitter (an automatic shut-off device) and to see if there are any hot spots or cool spots inside the kiln. It was actually a pretty quick firing. From the time I turned the switches on, to the point when the temperature hit cone 04 (a little over 1900 degrees F, probably) only three hours had passed. I was impressed... and surprised. I went out to the garage and saw that it had shut down, and I though something had gone wrong. Then I noticed that the kiln sitter had been tripped, and I looked through the peep hole and the cones that I could see, looked just like they were supposed to look. I think I did a little happy dance at that point (ha). The temperature in the garage rose 8 degrees in those three hours, even as evening was settling in. At 3:30, when I turned it on, it was 72 in the garage, and it was 80 in there by the time the kiln shut down. There's some serious heat going on there. Gabriel will love that during the winter months. Tomorrow morning I will open up the kiln and check the results. That's when I'll know for sure how it went. THEN... I will be able to fire my first load of pottery! The beginning of a great, creative adventure. Pretty dang cool.
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