[Clayart] firing a fuel kiln.

[mel jacobson via Clayart]

Firing a fuel kiln. There is no one way. It all depends.

Think of a commercial kiln in China. Every time it fires there are the same number of pots in the kiln. Each shelf is the same. The gas pressure is the same. The primary air is the same. The glazes are the same and the clay body is always the same. The timing of firing the kiln is always perfection. The folks that fire that kiln know what they are doing. When that kiln is opened on June 16, they are identical to the pots fired December 3rd. Every firing is the same.

Think of firing the 40 cube down draft kiln at the local art center. Every time the kiln is fired there are different sized pots. All the glazes are wild and thick and thin. There are probably four kinds of clay. How many pots can they stuff into that kiln? What is the air pressure today. Rain? What is the setting of the damper? How much gas pressure is flowing into the kiln? Do we fire fast or slow? Dan Nelson is firing the kiln today. He is in charge. Last week Nancy Makowski fired the kiln. The Shino’s were awful. They teach each other how to fire, but really don’t know anything.

When Colleen was in college it was said the salt kiln was broken. Awful pots. The prof told her to “go ahead and fire it”. No supervision or instruction, well, except me. She had fired our big salt kiln at the farm and I told her to buy ten pounds of salt. The directions on the wall said “two cups”. She fired it with me on the phone. When she salted the kiln the fumes and white smoke went all over the campus. She used the entire ten pounds. It was a perfect salt firing. Thick orange peel, nice brown color and every piece in the kiln was coated with salt.

It all depends
mel


website: www.melpots.com
WWW.clayartarchives.com

[Terry Lazaroff via Clayart]

Hi Mel;
When I first went to China in 2003, every kiln was registered and was fired by a kiln master. The residents were upset because they wanted to fire the kiln themselves. They didn't realize that it was the law. The kiln master was obliged to use a government form to keep the record of the temperature climb, and after the firing the form was sent to the government.

If the resident kiln was not full enough to fire economically, residents could take their work to the public kiln. These kilns were located close to universities and industrial areas. One could take the work before noon, and the kiln was fired overnight and was cold enough to pick up the fired pieces the next day. These kilns were fired to cone 11.

I still remember seeing a kiln full of blue and white ware turned off and the door opened immediately and held open for about five minutes. I could hear the glaze pinging. Looking back, if now believe that opening the kiln was to freeze the transparent glaze to ensure that there was no crystal formation, due to slow cooling. I asked one kiln master about the amount of loss. His answer was that any loss was meant to be.

Another time when visiting a coal fired tunnel kiln, we came across a pile of rejects. One of my groups picked up a small bowl and we examined it. We could not see any glaze, faults. We asked one of the workers why the piece was in the rejected pile. He said that the master threw it there so that must have been faulty.

Terry



________________________________
From: Clayart <clayart...@lists.clayartforum.com> on behalf of mel jacobson via Clayart <cla...@lists.clayartforum.com>
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2025 8:54 AM
To: clay clay <cla...@lists.clayartforum.com>
Cc: mel jacobson <mel...@mail.com>
Subject: [Clayart] firing a fuel kiln.

website: www.melpots.com<http://www.melpots.com>
WWW.clayartarchives.com

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