Thom Bumblauskas and I organized a Wood Soda firing. We started loading on Saturday at 10 am. We had help from Mark Rosentnal and students. We finished loading the kiln about 2:00 pm and put in a propane burner to get the candling proses started. We had about 30 pieces left over. We asked Derik if he had any thing sitting around. Derik is a artist at the studio that throws large platers and bowls. This got us enough piece to load the Refrigerator Kiln it is 32 square foot downdraft propane kiln that I re-bricked last summer.We had this kiln loaded by 6:00pm. I headed home my shift started at midnight Sunday morning. At 8:00 pm Tom started a wood fire and the wind started. We had wind gusts up to 40 miles an hour all day. When I got back at midnight Tom had the wood kiln at 450 degrees. Tom headed home about 1:00 am and will be back at 8:00 am. My firing schedule was reduce at 08 to 06. this happened at 7:00 am and was coming out of reduction at 8:00 am when Tom showed up with donuts. The firing schedule next was soda at cone 9 down and then hold cone 10 down and cone11 dipping for five hours. I went home and napped from 9:00 am to noon. At 7:00 pm cone 9 was down we had made up five gallons of water with five pounds of soda on Saturday. Three gallons was mixed with saw dust and two gallons was left for the sprayer. We put the saw dust mix on top of a half stoked Burry Box then stoked the box full and put the kiln in reduction. This puts flames out the actives on the Burry Box. We held reduction for a half an hour re-stoke and sprayed two gallons putting most of it on the Chimney side of the Bag Wall and back in reduction for a half an hour. Cone 11 bending happened about 9:00 pm. I ran out of energy at midnight and headed home. Tom and the crew Closed up the kiln at 1:30 am Monday morning. In middle of all this I lit the Refrigerator Kiln at 8:00 am reduced at 08 to 06, reduce at cone10 hold cone 10 for two hours and closed it at 11:00 pm. Both Kilns will open June 1 at 5:00 pm.
