Second swing shift of the firing. 8:30, and we’re 24 hours into the firing. We’re at 1550 degrees in front, and 900 some in back. It will even out as we go along. Red heat in front.

I’ve been trying to use the iphone wordpress app. It’s decent, but in this area of sketchy phone reception, it does have a few frustrating bugs. If a post fails halfway through sending, it will then crash every time you try to send it again, and you’ll have rewrite it. This post will be a little shorter than it once was.
Anyway, when I last checked the kiln a few hours ago, it was at 950 degrees. The day shift has it now. I’m on shift from 4pm to 12:30am. We started the kiln at 9 last night. For the first 900 degrees, the fire is outside the kiln, in the primary air intake. This lets us control the fire more easily, heating the kiln up slowly, as to not shock the pots.

We’re most of the way done with loading. Both the middle and the front fireboxes are a bit roomier than normal. We aren’t going to be using the far back firebox, since we think it doesn’t effect the kiln. We just used the space for pots instead. The kiln is packed very tightly.

So, far too early tomorrow morning, I will head off to Seabeck, WA for our woodfiring.  I’ll have my iphone, so it will be my goal to post a series of small updates during the firing.  I will apologize in advance for the spelling, since the wordpress iphone app lacks any form of spell check.

Here’s a shot of some of my preparations.  I have three giant bins this size, along with a milk crate of tiny pieces.  I’ve taken to using pillow stuffing to protect some of the delicate wings of my critters.  However, in this shot, I think laziness played more of a role than prudence. They do look like they’re taking a nap in a cloud, though.