The firing is underway!

Well after a 10hr pack yesterday, followed by pizza and wine we bricked up the wicket and lit the fire this morning at about 9am. It has been kept small at the front of the grate until about 3 this afternoon feeding through the lower firemouth, and we are now starting to feed through the upper firemouth as well. The pyrometer which I've stuck in the top blow hole is now reading about 400 C

Fire is building well still have the lower stoke hole open, but filling it with wood to burn down and form a cross hatch with the wood being dropped through the top firemouth. Soon time for supper and heads down for the first night shift. I'll be stoking till 3.30 when Steve will get up to take over. All good so far.

Nearly ready for firing!

It's been pretty hectic over the last couple of weeks. I've delivered all work to galleries and the Ceramics in Charnwood event held in Loughborough town centre on Sunday was a great success with plenty of interested visitors looking over the diverse ceramics on show.
I spent Monday and Tuesday chain sawing wood in the wind. How does so much saw dust end up in my socks??? The yard is now full with another pallet of wood to be cut up on Saturday when there is room. The kiln has been cleaned out and the grate fitted ready for the start of packing. Steve Parry is coming up tomorrow to help with the packing and firing and we will light the kiln on Friday morning and fire through to Sunday evening. This will probably be the last firing of this kiln as I am dismanteling it in the Autmun and rebuilding a slightly larger one. So, a bit sweet and sour, it's a good kiln but I'm striving for more diverse zones in a firing and the new kiln should give me those.

All my work to go into this firing has been glazed. I am using more shino in this firing than I have for a while. I have a couple of large bowls which I am particularly excited about seeing. The new bulbous bottles have my titanium ash glaze applied and I'm looking forward to seeing haow they come out.

I'll be updating this blog through the firing to keep a track of how it's going.

It's been a while but.....................

It's roughly a month now until my next firing. Pretty much all the work has been made and is now bisc and stacked on tables ready for glazing. Just a few more mugs and shot cups to make as well as as some setters for the larger pieces which will be side fired. Most of these pieces will have a shino glaze applied to the interiors. The exteriors will be left naked for the flame and ash to decorate. With all the good weather we have had recently the wood stacks are nice and dry. I'm just hoping that there arn't too  many wasps in there as I've seen quite alot of dozey ones coming out of hibernation looking for a good spot to start a nest. I've been travelling around delivering work to several galleries over the past couple of weeks. The Galanthus Gallery near Hereford have a show on soon and also the SCA gallery in Shrewsbury. I also have to take work to the Beetroot Tree gallery in Derbyshire next week. The following week I am taking part in a local ceramic event in Loughborough town centre, so will need to select the work for that and also dust down my display units. The week after that will be wood cutting in preparation for the firing. I've taken a few pictures of the bisc work stacked high and have also made another "making" video of how I make one of my small course clay jars. Hope you enjoy them.

And the video. This will also be uploaded to the wesite in the near future.

Started on some medium jars

It's been a little while since I've updated as the clay which I made up has been settling. However, now all the course grogged clay which I made a few weeks ago has been wedged and bagged and I've now started to make again. This clay will be used for some medium paddled jars, large and small bowls and a couple of platters. I've now had the chance to start on the jars.

I've sorted out my next firing dates which will be packing on the 12th May and firing 13th - 15th. Freinds Steve Parry and Drew Lawes will be coming over to help with the firing. Saddly my faithful chain saw died a coupple of weeks ago beyon reasonable repair so I'll need to get a new one before the next firing as there will be a lot of fuel to cut prior to it. The porcelain in the blunger is now ready to start putting out on to plaster and bagging up ready to start making mugs and shot cups. That's one of next weeks jobs

I have clay!

I've managed to mix up my new batches of clay this week. 300kg of high flux porcelain in the blunger and 100kg of heavily grogged body in the dough mixer.

Heavily grogged boddy in the doughmixer. I've just added a couple of handfulls of pink granite grit from the local Mountsorrel quarry and two of white feldspar, topped off with 7 kg of 1 -3mm corderite grog.

The blunger which I mix the porcealin in is a bit rusty, the little rust which falls in, adds some interesting iron giving some lovely results in the kiln. I'll mix the clays for a couple of days more and then start the epic job of wedging and bagging up. I don't use a pug mill so it will take me a couple of days to get the grogged body wedged (around teaching). The porcelain will be fine sitting in the blunger and I'll just keep putting it out on plaster and wedgeing until I have enough to make the work I want. I've now got two dates in mind for the next firing; either the last week of April or the first week of May. It seems along time off but I know it'll come around quickly.
 I had a bit of bad news today in that my trusty chainsaw has finally died. It's lasted me 12 years cutting wood for firings. I'll have to get a new one before April.

Throwing a composite vase

I did a bit of filming today and managed to put together a sequence showing the throwing of a soft thrown composite vase. More work for the next firing. The film is also available to view on the making sequences page of the web site along with a few others.

I've now uploaded testing notes to the web site

The wind has finally abated and after an hour of stuggling with ropes and tattered tarpaulines yesterday I managed to get the stacks covered and rain proof again. I've also finally finished writing up  notes I made last summer while exploring crackle shino glazes and have uploaded them to my web site. They can be found here:

http://www.ben-brierley-woodfired-ceramics.co.uk/Crackle%20shino.html