Kiln Group November 2023 woodfiring

This is an overview of the work the Kiln Group did in November 2023, at the Chiltern Open Air Museum kiln site. This meeting was all about wood firing. We built a small fast firing wood kiln from kiln bricks and prepared it for our first firing. We came with a selection of our work and glazed with a low firing glaze, using cone packs that went up to 04 temperature - no more than 1100C. We spent the day firing our work and left the kiln to cool over night before revealing the results.
We learnt a huge amount about how the flames travelled around the kiln, where the heat-work happened, how to feed the fire, control the temperature and the air flow.
There were some successful glaze results and some not so successful results, showing that we need to concentrate more on evening the temperature out in the kiln, reaching temperature a little more slowly and matching the glazes we use to the temperature we hope to gain.
Our next meet will be to try to reach a high stoneware fire temperature - cone 8 or 9 or even up to 1300C.