Kurt's firing August 2010... more images continued.

Kurt's firing August 2010... more images.

Kurt's firing August 2010... the beginning.

Wood-Salt Firing in Boiling Springs with Kurt

Friend, colleague, and Juniata College student Nick Brown and I joined Kurt to fire his updraft woodkiln in August. It went quite well dis-spite a disgruntled and completely uninformed neighbor who just picked us to take all her environmental woes at about 9:00 am at around 2000 degrees. What a problem! People really need to learn about what they are fighting against before they raise their voice. If she knew what kind of footprint the wood we were burning actually was as opposed to the propane she forcefully suggested we use or the gas she uses to 'drive to her real job' over an hour everyday she would never have left her house to even think about doing anything but thanking us for enriching her town both in spirit and in culture. We went from stoking rather large pieces of slab wood to spending about 12 to 14 hours firing with nothing but 3 or 4 pieces of 9"x3"x1" hardwood and were able to continue to rise in temperature. It was insane. The pictures I promised will be uploaded shortly as there are many.

Mid Summer's End

I have just come back from a 'weekend' in Carlisle PA in which I spent time working with Kurt in his studio preparing for a salt/wood/propane firing in his kiln. This firing is going to happen next weekend and I plan on documenting so there will be another post to follow this one with images of the whole deal. Just before that though my dad and I set up a small barrel that he lined with a refractory castable material and attempted to run a saltku (high temp, like cone 9-14, gas firing using charcoal and rock salt) firing. Because of the lack of a proper flue system we were only able to reach 1250 degrees F but it was still a worthwhile venture. We fired from about 6pm till midnight when the kiln basically stopped gaining temp for good. We are casting a real lid with a better opening for a flue so there will be another firing soon.

We had a camera so here is kind of how it went.