Yesterday we unloaded the anagama. These are a few of my favorites from the firing. Great firing! Now its time to sand and prep for next weekends show, the Joara pottery festival. I have already started working on the next firing so I am on a roll baby!
Working towards a firing in early may means late nights. 6 a.m. seems much earlier for this salty dog than it did just a few years ago! Pic is a detail of a 20 inch bottle. Stick some handles on and off to bed, alarm rings for school and a new day begins.
I love when its header course time! Little soldiers all lined up! This is sarah house's new/used rebuilt kiln going up!
well,
Three weekends of work down in asheboro resulted ina finished and loaded kiln. One of the pics below (I seem to longer care about the order they appear ;P ) is of Donna inside the kiln with spectators watching on. Man she has two giant pots in there. They had to be every bit of 3.5 feet tall! It was a pleasure to help and watch the last bit of loading after i hung the stoke door. I was glad to see a local (but non local aussie) had mudded the kiln for me and did an amazing job, thanks keith! WEll I had fallen behind on some things around the studio, so last saturday, i got up, worked on pots, finished the stoke door, and then headed out for asheboro around 3 pm, got to donna's around 6 or so and after the door was up and pyrometer holes drilled, donna, susan and I had a few beers and some good conversation! I rolled for home about 11:30 pm!!! I know crazy! I then spent all day sunday prepping for a firing at western piedmonts salt kiln. The other pic of a loaded kiln is how i spent my labor day, enjoyed loading this kiln all by myself, headphones on and all! Tomorrow i will head down, fire the kiln and catch up on some grading and lecture writing. STick around mudpuppies, i will post pics of my new pots.
shane
well well well you blog people. yes, the lost boy of blogging is back. well not back as in i will blog everyday, but,,, well i won't even say it.
So The crew (me, will baker, micah cain) drove down to asheboro to start the build for Donna Craven's new barrel arch tube kiln. This is a fairly big kiln, not a giant pot eater, but for donna and her working style i think the design and size is perfect. She currently is using a smaller version of this style thats maybe 40 inches tall inside and 3 feet wide and about 6 feet long. This new kiln is 60 inches at the crown, almost five feet wide and 10 feet long. I didn't just use regular and usual kiln dimensions on this one as far as firebox length, and firewall height because i hope that i can achieve a similar firing style to Donna's old kiln. The exit flue wall will have multiple exit flues side to side and up the wall. I even plan on putting in a couple 4.5x5 flues above the dampers! Donna crash cools her kiln which can be dangerous with really big pots. The idea is a quick cool down to 2000 degrees rather than 1800, then the kiln will still cool quickly due to the open flues.
We got to the point you see in the last image. Tomorrow Evan and I will drive down early, with Ross Edwards signing on to help, work for 7 or 8 hours laying the chimney and back exit flue wall (they go up at the same time becuase they are shared up to the top of the arch) Hopefully if the roof is up by now we can go ahead and unroll the fiber on the arch. I will likely be going down the next 3 weekends to work and fire the kiln with Donna. I will post pictures of the finished kiln and possibly the firing!!! This kiln was almost the death of my kiln building career, at one point after 4 12hour days my back was so locked up i could barely walk. But never fear, Shane Mickey kiln designs is open for business, so tell your friends and neighbors.
see ya round the brick yard
shane
In this photo you can see the initial foundation, I solved the cart by using two different sized pieces of angle iron, it worked out very nicely and you can see by the two sides of the metal cart the difference in terms of the foundation, its way off, which we fixed, see above.
Once we overcame that hurdle we moved into wall laying mode. Usually at this point i may send will back to the chimney to work on it, but this site already had an insulted system coming down from the roof, so will worked with me on the walls.
Well about right after this pic above was taken and several hours after a killer mexican lunch (CHORIZO), I became violently ill, started vomiting around 6pm and it continued every 15 mins till 5 am. I languished in bed till around 9am. Eventually i got up and made myself go to the hardware store to get materials for the arch form and anything else we would need for the rest of the build. By the time we got back to the job site i was weak, so let will unload the truck and start on the arch layout while i went down to rest. I slept thru lunch and managed to work from around 3-5 that day, we got the arch form built and the run of bricks figured. I then let will lay all the brick but the keybrick. The next morning i was at 70% and was back at it! We managed to finish the arch, start the door and some of the small brick cuts under the arch. For the door i tried to add some more stability. Most car kiln doors, over time, will become loose if the frame is only welded together. Even if it is bolted together the wall can walk. I tried to stop this by running some rod thru the door in notched out brick, only time will tell i guess. you can see the door detail here:
Ok, so I found the door to be very exciting, see when you build kilns that are very similar this business can get a bit boring. I try to add new and hopefully better design elements to every kiln i build. One thing this kiln site had that needed to be considered was overhead. The roof was only 8 feet high with two covered beams that hung down another 8 inches. The kiln was a little shorter in height than the average kiln. On top of that i decided to over insulate the arch. This kiln has three layers of ceramic fiber topped with stucco. I have to say that this was one of the best stucco jobs we have every done! I got smart and used a 2x6 wedged between the upright irons, set on top of the skewblocks, this allowed me to really work the edges of the stucco and end up with a very strong and clean edge. Here she is in all her glory:
Well this kiln will go down in the books as one of the more interesting builds. When we finished the stucco at 3pm on day six we literally threw stuff in the back of bessie, grabbed a sandwich and left. We thought we would run into some snow, but we hit a helluva snow storm in southern VA. It made for a slow ride home, but a lot of time to talk business. So there you have it, the long story. I will update how she fires once the client sets a date and time for me to go back to fire her up.
see ya round the blogosphere
shane
so, this potters life has been anything but pottery lately. I know i am giving tons of info and guidance to the potters of western piedmont CC's prof. crafts program, but i have not made pots for myself until yesterday! been a long break and it feels so good to be in the saddle again. On other fronts I the kiln business has been busy for the economic downturn. Will baker and I went up to salem Va to build a car kiln (images of that will come later!) It was a successful build even though we battled negative windchills every day, frozen wet saw, and i had either a stomach flue or food poisoning for 30 hours! WE pulled thru and still finished the kiln in 5-6 days. Upon return school started back up and the following weekend i spent at linda mcfarlings studio ripping up her floor, firebox castable and one of the door jamb walls, these are the pics you see here! The bricks in what i call the firewall had been eaten away so badly that the bagwall fell in during a firing. there are pics of a couple of these bricks, you can see how bad they were damaged. We replaced them with some andalusite brick which are high fire superduty, high alumina in content. The brick were 15" long so they made a nice replacement to the front of the floor where all the soda action takes place. After the demo and rebuild was finished i added some metal around the floor and cut a new hole since i moved the main side soda port higher. I still need to remud and add two pieces of threaded rod, but the kiln is functional, enjoy the pics. I will update the va kiln soon and some goings on at school. I need to keep this blog a rolling! happy potting
the doctor
Well today at school we started the day by cutting the door and building on the chimney at the same time. I actually thought we would get the door finished and the chimney up high enough to at least fire the thing(power burners!). The roof has yet to be started, guess the company that the school hired is just to busy to make money? Hell i should have put in a bid!!!! at least it would be finished. anyway, we only got half the door finished and up past the damper on the chimney, not bad. The door took longer becuase i decided since it was soft brick to let the students try their hands at some of those fancy "L" cuts i use. They enjoyed it, as they and I always do. After wards, and the real meat to this meatloaf of a blog post, was the Steve Abee demo (see pics). I have only just meet steve but find him to be a humble potter. The afternoon had discussions of old catawba valley potters, Steve's connections with Charlie Lisk and Burlon Craig, Historical potters and where we all fit in in this big ol stew pot of contemporary potters. I must say that there is nothing better than watching your students watch a fresh set of hands on the clay. Speaking of students i also had the great pleasure of watching one of our students, adam, really take off in the bigger pot department. He was working on stacking cylinders or "capping" as it is also called. He made two really big 7lb vases today, and the satisfaction on his face was unmistakeable! That is the true pleasure of teaching right there, watching it all go down, reliving those early experiences that i remember myself having. The visual affirmation of what I/ we try to impart to these students is the best reward. Well it was a good day and one i will remember for a long time. I feel like i did little physical labor today yet at the same time i am totally exhausted, mostly mentally. but thats a good thing i think.
papa out
well, by body i mean the new salt kiln i have been documenting, my body is not so fine lately although my soul f
so, where do i begin??? hmmmmm. Well almost a whole month has went by and what have i accomplished! nothing in the studio, barely got any pots made and that i do not like at all.i am severely starting to miss the rhythms of daily studio life, esp when i have no pots to sell. I am still trying to work up a batch of pots,just to share a kiln with Linda mcfarling. Other than my own studio, the studio at school is busy. And as with any school setting i have some students who try very hard and work hard and those who don't really give a shit. To be totally honest i find some of the students to be down right belligerent, and whiney. I have about had it with those students! so the pictures you see are of our recent progress on the salt kiln. Evan and his mom are away for the week at the beach so i am hoping to move my office from upstairs(to make room for a walk in closet!) to downstairs and spend alot of time drinking heavily and making lots of pots. if you need me look under my pottery wheel under the pile of empty pabst blue ribbon cans. that is all, captain is out!
so, its been a steady grind since the begining of the semester. i am coming down to western piedmont community college five days a week this semester and next semester! with a 68% increase in enrollement the school probably needs me! I am wearing thin of the long commute everyday and luckily stella (my little blue saturn ion) doesnt seem to mind it, but i do. We have started the build on our salt kiln here at school for the kiln building class. what you see are two class periods of construction (@4 hours!) I thought the kiln would take forever but it may go faster than i thought, as you can see in one pic, many hands make for quick work! i just have to check and find errors as they go along. With these long days (12 hours counting driving time!) every day i have found that energy for the studio is lacking, I knew in the back of my mind this could happen, but boy, its tough!! I have managed to make a few dozen pots and have a firing scheduled in a friends soda kiln. I even refired some pots in the schools baby gas kiln as a test to see how it fires since its been unfired for some years now (wink wink). they came out very well i thought and have given me a little cushin for some up coming shows. speaking of shows i did manage to go up to blowing rock art in the park this month, but we won't talk about that, no, lets not go there! lets just say i am happy to get a great steady paycheck! well, off to punish students and discuss our production line for western piedmont's craft line that we will be selling at the appalachian potters market in marion NC in december! till next time....
DR. Mickey
just a quickie, I cleaned the studio up a bit, more a put a bunch of stuff away kinda deal, but i am back at the potting and it feels so good to be in the studio again. It has been way too long! Western Piedmont community college is back in session and i can already feel the switch to a more fall mentality for old D-Shane. WEll the picture is of the first pots off my treadle wheel, just some simple teabowls. I big shout out to June Perry for sending this wheel my way. She stated that this wheel was made by mackenzie's brother! I may have to channel some minnesota spirits :). well back at it, or maybe i will watch the end of the carolina preseason game? hmmmmmm. ahh doesn't matter, you'll never really know.
I'm out, later
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