good morning backache

Once again, I have just found my body's limits- I knew I was pushing too hard. but it only proves, somedays, you just shouldn't get out of bed: I lifted my head one inch from the pillow and immediately let it drop as a pain shot through the entire back of my ribcage. ok, don't panic. I can breathe, mostly.

so it's a big kiln!, especially without any bag walls. the footprint of the stacking area is three by four feet, and that goes up an average of three and a half feet... that's 45 cubic feet when you count the nooks and crannies! I would not have dared build a kiln this size if I hadn't been given free materials. but there it is, and it's in my backyard

this is one half of the pots. Jack and I will finish the rest today. notes on stacking.. the kiln was very uneven last time- why? I had opened most of the openings in the floor at the back. two at the front. I think the front was less densely packed, for one thing. it was all little pots on shelves, whereas the back was tumble-stacked big things. this time it'll be more symmetrical. I have made a few other changes. Olsen's "runaround" fastfire kiln has a low bag wall integrated into the shelving- he blocks the most direct path along the floor from firebox to flue. so see those little square bricks on the floor of my kiln- those are serving that function. maybe it ought to be extend higher. He makes a stong point about the need, therefore, to leave adequate gaps between the shelves to allow for that flame to move- an inch. so I was careful about that.
The other thing is that I figured out how to make a trick brick to open the flue in the wall during the firing if need be... to move heat toward the back, and will cover floor holes in the front with fiberboard instead of plugs so they can be pushed aside if heat is needed in the front....

I consulted with Nils Lou about bourry-boxes. He thinks a two by three foot area is necessary, with a little over half of the space below the grate bars. This would be needed for bringing the kiln up to temp with wood. But we're not really trying to do that, exactly, so I went with two smaller boxes. hopefully enough space for the wood to burn well. if these are indeed the right size, I imagine that I'll rebuild them nicely. as it is, it was a two-day slapdash affair, enough to test it and get by with wombly red bricks made by hand in the 1920's.


Candling tomorrow! I need to buy some food for the crew-