{"id":766,"date":"2011-11-20T14:49:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-20T05:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karatsupots.com\/wordpress\/?p=766"},"modified":"2011-11-20T14:49:34","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T05:49:34","slug":"the-first-pots-chawan-and-guinomi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karatsupots.com\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/the-first-pots-chawan-and-guinomi.html","title":{"rendered":"The First Pots: Chawan and Guinomi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are some of the first pots to get cleaned up after the firing last week. I’ll post more over the next few days as I get things cleaned up. <\/p>\n

Overall the firing went well, much better than the first two certainly. I’m finally starting to get a grip on how the kiln climbs, and learning not to worry about it too much. We fired both chambers this time and it took roughly 30 hours. Cone 10 flat in front, cone 9 touching in the rear, and cone 13 almost touching in the second chamber. The second chamber is a pleasure to fire, very relaxing after stoking the front. I think I can still get more aggressive with the front, taking the temp up even more, probably somewhere around cone 12 would be good for the rice straw ash glazes.<\/p>\n

The intention was to drop cone 6 in the rear and call it quits, but it ended up getting hotter than expected, and the ware in front ended up a little too shiny. However, the middle and rear of the setting came out just about perfectly. Temp from top to bottom was quite even. We stopped stoking the second chamber when cone 11 dropped and clammed everything up after letting some of the excess heat out. Still, when I peeked in the next morning, that second chamber was still glowing, and cone 13 was mostly down. Guess that 1250kg of insulating castable does its job well.<\/p>\n

Most of the failures this time around were caused by bad glazing, not the firing. Rice straw ash glazes were universally too thick, and an ash glaze I whipped up hoping to be a nice runny green ended up being a crusty reddish brown. Oops.<\/p>\n