Post Unloading Juniata's Anagama Thoughts

As I said before the images below were taken mainly by my dad over the course of a week-ish. He used a point-and-shoot digital camera so there are more than a few "motion action shots." Overall the firing was a complete success. There were very few "bad" pots but we did/ I did manage to stack the front of the kiln using only one brick to support two very heavy 32"x24" shelves. Needless to say there were some weight + heat-over-time happenings.


We did get the kiln to temperature and developed a solid holding pattern that allowed us to reach cone 13 (2400 F or 1310 C). We also had the front of the kiln open for just about the entire firing which let radiant heat from our front ember mass (coals that are used to maintain temp. in the firebox of the anagama) help to get our desired temperature in the back of the kiln.
For the record Jared and Nick came on shift as I was fading around 10am Monday morning and they stoked the middle and back of the kiln till a little after Simon Leach's Youtube video was shot at 3pm in the afternoon. The cones in the middle door section had cone 12 (2350 F) down and in the back Jared managed to flatten cone 13 (no easy task).

Our goal was to get it hot and melt the ash on our pots (as the firing before this one there were many crusty grey pots) and we did just that. Many beautiful things came out of this firing and I think everyone got at least one great piece. Expect to see examples of my pots as soon as I get my home photo set-up set up. Maybe I'll even post images of some of the other peoples work i.e. Nick, Jared, and my Dad. Who knows.