Wood Firing

Just got back this afternoon from Keith's and I had a great time firing my first wood kiln. I've gotta say, wood firing is a ton of work!! It sure is a good thing that it's basically free to fire! It really is a lot of fun though, and I still want to build my own one day, but it's nice to know what I'm getting into now.

I got up there at about 9 am yesterday morning, and Keith had only been firing for about an hour, and we finished up at a little before 7 last night. Everything went really well, except for the soda. We just could not get the sprayer to work. Keith had planned on putting a soda mix on the boards added to the fire box and sprayed straight into the kiln, but we only ended up getting the soda on the boards. Lisa and Alex LaPella also came by to help with the firing, and it is a good thing they did. They kept the kiln at temp while Keith and I were screwing around with the sprayer--and it just made it easier to fire and a whole lot more fun! I think we all had a really fantastic time!! I think Keith might post a full report on the firing over at his blog in the next few days, so I'll just post some pics and a video of the happenings. He said that he'll have a live video on his website of him opening the kiln Wednesday morning.