Mixing glaze yesterday..

out of the fire and into the frost..

Latest continued...

First firing in a while...solid.

 Finally making a little studio time and a new batch of work arrived the 27th. I have mixed up a batch of cone 6 Tenmoku from a recipe I found on the web. It is credited to James Jacobs of Mesa Community College. I am really pleased with the results.  I noticed that while the kiln was in it's final hold that the temperature was reading below the cone six maximum temperature and later thought to cross verify the thermocouple with my portable digital.  I need do this again for a full cycle but the kiln and the portable were within a degree or two descending at this low temp.  

Related....

 My truck with one of two loads of firebricks I bought on a ski trip two weeks ago. The materials come from a Olsen 36 that had been disassembled. I haven't had time yet to survey the lot but the price was right. The bricks are all insulating firebrick so I need to keep the hunt on for high alumina hard bricks. There is a wood burning kiln in my future...

This is random ...and related.

I had lunch with a friend in Portland this week at Flatbread pizza Co. http://www.flatbreadcompany.com/ 

They serve wood fired pizza, salad...oh, and beer. It's pretty much the trinity.

Our server invited us to stay and help build their new pizza oven, it was a community event. The current oven they use was built in 2000,  how could I resist participating? The armature was already in place on a stone and sand base. Plastic bins like the one below were out on tables and a mix of sand and clay and cement and ash was delivered to kids and adults to mix with water and straw, to kneed and pound and wedge into bricks as stiff as our strength would allow.

Looking into the arch the fire is tended in the center of the oven while the pizzas cook on the soapstone sides. all of the wood formwork will be burned off with the first firing of the oven.

One kid getting some elbow into it...

I was busy making bricks and didn't get to pictures before most of the formwork was covered and smoothed together...chef d'ouvre Mark

The fire breaths and exhausts by way of the arch a the front of the oven...there is no other chimney so the oven will have a massive vent hood placed over it and will run continuously to evacuate combustion gasses. Though large, the hood in the picture is not the final hood.

The oven will be allowed to dry for 3 months before a fire is lit inside.

Cone 10 Gas Fire Workshop at Watershed

 This last weekend I attended a workshop at Watershed. We kindled the kiln overnight Friday and ran a firing cycle over about 10-11 hours on Saturday. We cracked the kiln open Sunday afternoon. 

 Storage jar with Celadon glaze.

 Bowl with Red Art Shino glaze.

 Jug with Malcom Davis (R.I.P.) Shino. The glaze was quite thick and went into the kiln quite wet. The white bumps are likely soda coming to the surface. The black tone is the result of carbon trapping.

 Jar with Tenmoku glaze

 Jar also with Tenmoku.

 Jar with Black 'Tea Dust' glaze.

Below are from my electric kiln this last weekend (it was a productive weekend).

Cone 5 fired with commercial glazes.

 The Tagine came out fine with an "Oatmeal glaze over the copper carbonate banding.

I made the mistake of firing the lid on three supports, I was worried the glaze was going to run. The lid warped a bit so that it doesn't flush with the base. I'll make another but I'm going to try to use this one anyway.

 Some Bowls...

 Yunomi..