firing day, Gwehelog

South Wales Potters held a firing day, firing a brick built wood-fired kiln of about 7 cubic foot packing space. As rain was forecast, it was tackle the gazebo time.....
Erm....... How many potters does it take to get a gazebo up???!!!
Ta Daaaa!!
After all that it only just rained a little as the firing finished.The weather was just right, sunny intervals, not too hot for kiln stoking.
I contributed a pony"kiln god"
The ingenious door
Which opens clear away from the firebox entrance
Steve Hozelitz busy, Steve Mills supervising, doing a grand job, with help from Kate Mills.

Stoking was two lengths of pallet at a time, three seemed excessive, and stalled the temperature gain
The wood stack
using a baulk of wood to keep the door closed
just after a stoke, you can see the spiral flow of the smoke
unfortunately a weld cracked on a flue, but it didn't seem to affect it too much
getting ready to turn the kiln off, by lowering the flues
going....
gone, and capped with a kiln shelf
The firing only took seven hours, which was quite respectable.
Unfortunately the clay supporting the cones wasn't bone dry, AND the initial temperature rise was too fast .(blame the kiln god?!!) It therefore exploded and spread what was describe as 'crud' over most of the pots! However, much was learnt from the firing, and some decent pots emerged the following day. I had two small bowls, and a horse dish, which I wasn't going to sell anyway. It was the only survivor of the first three made, and my Man liked it!

I must thank those who knew about him for looking after me. It was a day of good food, hard work and much learning, and we are all looking forward to the next firing in July.