As the title suggests, I’m back from the wood firing!  It went quite well.  We went for around 110 hours including reduction cooling.  We decided to keep the kiln a little cooler this time, and topped out at 2380°f in front, and about 2360°f in back.  We dropped cone 13 in front, (ceramics measures firings in cones, something I’ll explain at another time) and reached cone 12 or so in the middle and back.  In the past couple firings we’ve hit 2450°f, and dropped cone 14, but decided that was a bit hot for the results we were looking for.

This firing, the front of the kiln was loaded far looser than we’ve ever had it, while the back was very tight.  It will be interesting to see how this effects the results.  The firing was very even in temperature, and so many of the pieces looked positively juicy with melted ash.  I hope it comes out well, but I’ll have to wait a week to find out.

There will be a lot of fun videos and pictures appearing in the next few days, so stay tuned!