I fired the new muffle several times in quick succession, making the most of the good summer weather, and working towards a deadline, to have pots ready for the ceramic selling event, Earth & Fire.
I fire my kiln, on a warming pilot flame over night, it has usually reached about 300 degrees by the morning. I am firing my pots from raw, so the initial stages to drive off any water from the clay needs to be done with care.
I begin to turn up the gas and light more burners as the day goes on, starting from about 7 in the morning. If nothing goes amiss, (burner won’t stay alight, gas bottle runs out etc.) then I am usually ready to turn off the kiln by about 3pm. I fire to between 1140 degrees C and 1180 degrees C and I reduce on the damper to the final 100 degrees or so.
When all the 4 burners are roaring away, and the temperature is holding steady at 1180 reducing on the damper I find it hard to turn it off, even thought I know I should. It’s like a big breathing thing, that has taken a long time to wake up, and I don’t like to quiet it down.
I force myself to shut off the gas bottles, reflecting on what pieces I have in the kiln, which clays I have used, and how much tolerance they will have for this kind of treatment.
