It's a few minutes after 10:00 and the kiln sitter just dropped. A little while ago I heard a disheartening pop come from the inside of the kiln, but I'm hoping it was just the soft brick or steel encasement expanding, or something. I doubt it, but I guess we will see tomorrow afternoon... what survived and what didn't. I normally don't have much trouble with that sort of thing, but I guess it's bound to happen sooner or later.
A disheartening pop... what does that look like? Well, not nearly as bad as what I had envisioned when I couldn't open the lid on my kiln. But once I got a look inside, Sunday afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised, and a little baffled, because I couldn't see anything wrong with any of the pieces coming out. But then I got down to the bottom layer, and discovered the source. A nice, big platter that I had made a while back, was cracked on the edge. It wasn't a big crack, and there was no spalling, but even the smallest crack on something like that may as well run across the whole piece. So it was a loss; no crushing blow. I will make another. You always hate to lose something in the firing, obviously, but it happens. Mostly it just leaves you wondering what caused it, and how to prevent it from happening again. Most everything else was fine, as far as the firing goes. I had some less than stellar results with a couple of deco experiments, but those were sort of a roll of the dice, anyway. So... on to glazing! Should have them all ready by the middle of this week.
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