High Five

Well the firing is over and it’s another high five. Anne Marie is our wall paper specialist and always leaves her trademark art statement in the clamming of the wood kiln door. This weekend’s tag was a paper mache high five. She's missing from this shot. She hurried off to help Banksy somewhere in Toronto. 

We used all walnut again for this firing as always it makes us work. It has a short hot flame so oddly the bottom of the kiln is always so much ahead of the top. Current wisdom would tell ya that heat rises but with this wood we have to really damper in to push the heat up which then slows the firing. We ended with Cone 11 down everywhere but the top back corner. I wish this kiln had an active damper of both sides of the chimney. We tried using the passives to push the heat over to the other side but it just killed the temperature rise. If you’re not watching the pyrometer you are watching the flame. Here is the gang watching the flame to tell yours truly when to stoke. No smoke time to stoke. Actually it is no flame time to stoke. Had a couple roll in this morning to tell us we had a chimney fire. I said to him “ It doesn’t much look like we give a shit does it?” He laughed and drove off.