So the main events for this year are as follows...





Ceramics Southeast

Potfest in the Park

Helfa gelf

Hence the need for a functioning kiln sooner rather than later!!

It's been a while since I last updated this and there have been a few changes - the big one being the taking down of the kiln. The site the kiln was built on needed to be cleared so it had to go. It had got to the stage where it needed some major repair work anyway so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. All of the bricks and kiln furniture are currently being stored in the hope that a new site can soon be found and a new and hopefully improved kiln built.
Here are a few farewell pictures of the kiln......

There are already a few shows booked for this year but hopefully an alternative will be found in time to get the work fired.

This weekend the studio was open to the public as part of the Helfa Gelf open studio event. Because last year was so quiet it was only open for one of the three weekends this time. On Saturday the minigamma dragon kiln was fired in the garden from mid afternoon right through till late in the evening using charcoal. It looked pretty impressive when it got dark, breathing fire from it's mouth and nose......



The weather stayed dry for the whole weekends so the big work was displayed outside....
leaving more space for the smaller stuff inside.....

Mostly for future reference, I'm copying this exactly as it is fom the records that were kept throughout the firing

May 6th 2009
Time  -  Temp  -  Notes

Wayne
6.20am                 - Start, preheat two small fires outide firebox.
7.20am  -  55c   
9.00am  - 100c  -  Slowly starting to push fires into box.
9.30am  -  53c  -  Removed small fireboxes. Fire now in main firebox, but still stoke in left hand side fire holes.
10.30am  -  153c  -  Burning scrapwood.
11.00am  -  195c
12.00am  -  220c
1.00pm  -  300c  -  Moved around to lower front stoke hole. Side holes open 1 inch each.
1.30pm  -  361c  -  Stoking top front.
Tom
2.30pm  -  500c  -  Still very little smoke.
3.30pm  -  620c  -  Stoking top, still using old scrapwood.
4.30pm  -  710c
5.30pm  -  796c  -  New firebox seems to be drawing really well with little smoke.
Janice
6.30pm  -  865c
7.30pm  -  855c
Wayne    (and Jo, plus kids in the boot of the car!)
9.00pm  -  960c  
10.00pm  -  1000c
10.15pm  -  1045c  
Laura and Rob
11.30pm  -  1010c  -  Bung in reduce
12.00am  -  1045  -  Heavy rain!
12.30am  -  1060c  -  Even heavier rain!
1.00am  -  1068c  -  Thinking about putting big log in.
1.30am  -  1072c  -  Getting on Ok without logs. All wood very wet, taking longer to burn.
2.30am  -  1080c  -  Rain has stopped :)
3.00am  -  1030c  -  Put log in - dropped in temp quite a bit.
3.30am  -  1050  -  Rob gone for sleep, got temp back up a bit. Aiming for 1080......
4.00am  -  1080c  -  Woohoo! :)
4.30am  -  1090c
5.00am  -  1100c
5.30am  -  1100c
6.00am  -  1101c
6.30am  -  1111c  -  Wayne's back! :) Raked embers. Opened damper to start climb.
Wayne
8.00am  -  1160c  -  Side embers.
9.30am  -  1180c  -  Front embers. Tidy kiln site.
11.00am  -  1190c  -  Opened side lower stoke holes 2 inches to allow more air - seemed to do the trick.
11.30am  -  1170c  -  Stuck. Mess about with stoke holes side and front and damper. Moved pallets from side to allow more air into shelter.
12.30pm  -  1205c  -  Success, movement!
2.00pm  -  1220c
Simon and Alan 
3.00pm  -  1208c
4.00pm  -  1220c
5.00pm  -  1250c
Nick and Ray
5.30pm  -  1280c  -  More oxygen, smaller bits of wood, raised temp 30c, pulled back to 1245c to hold
6.30pm  -  1245c  -  Think cone beginning to go.
Wayne
7.00pm  -  Finish. Cones 8, 9 and 10 gone, 12 bent. Doors sealed, crash cooled.
New firebox seems to hold well - much safer than the old one. Downward pressure caused by the very strong winds seemed to slow temp rise. Temperature was helped by opening main stoke hole to oxidize the firebox.
Finished at 7.00pm on Thursday 7th May.

The last firing started at 6.20 am on Wednesday the 6th. I took these pictures when I went down to keep Wayne company for a couple of hours that evening. I didn't get many decent pictures because the light was fading....

We also had some extra company in the boot of the car!

The wind was really strong - it was all through the firing and it started raining later on too. Not exactly ideal conditions, but the kiln turned out some pretty good results so it was worth the effort....
It was opened on the Sunday.

There was a lot of nice stuff, particularly teapots, although there were a few that were underfired. This mug is the one I picked before the firing and I reckon it's the best one!

Wayne fired the kiln nearly two weeks ago and I still haven't yet got around to updating this! He started the firing on the Thursday at around 11am and kept it going with a little help from a few friends until around 8pm on the Friday, so around 33 hours in total. The kiln needed a little TLC before the firing, particularly the chimney which had miraculously not fallen down but which was leaning at a slightly worrying angle.


That was the chimney before, but there's no after pictures yet. It was completely re-built not only to be more stable but also to join onto a second kiln which is being built alongside it.
And here's the Kiln loaded up and ready to go....


I think I need to get down there myself with the camera next time - Wayne is obviously far to busy doing the important stuff to bother taking any decent pictures!!
I did manage to get a few pictures of the pots inside the kiln when we went to take a peek to see if it was cool enough empty, which it was - just. The camera didn't melt and neither my arm so that was a good sign.

And these were taken once the door was fully open

There was some good stuff - particularly tea bowls - and also some not so good stuff but overall the firing was better than the last and produced more consistantly good results. I shall post some pictures of the new work just as soon as I take them.

I haven't updated here in ages, but as this is hopefully going to be linked to from Waynes new website very soon (It's still being tweaked) I though I'd better do a short and sweet catch up on whats been going on for the past few weeks.

Helfa gelf took up three weekends, and although it was extremely quiet compared to last year it meant that Wayne actually managed to get quite a lot of work done in the studio.
After that was the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair - www.greatnorthernevents.co.uk which went well enough. Wayne thought it was a really good event, particularly considering it was the first year. 
Unfortunately he didn't take any photo's but he might be able to get hold of a few which I'll add later.

The next priority seems to be finding a fairly small, fairly cheap, but hopefully not too damp and smelly caravan to use down at the kiln site during firings. It certainly would make things more comfortable, and if we can find one in good enough condition it could also come in handy for holidays!!

Once the website is up and running I'll have to try and update this a bit more regularly - I left it so long this time I'd forgotten the password!