The kiln shed has been a work in progress for four years now. At first it was just a roof on poles wrapped in blue tarps to keep out the wind and rain during firings. I had so many tarps that I semi-seriously considered building a smurfy blue yurt. The last few pictures on the 9th building page show the galley’s original incarnation (but not the tarps).
At four years in and not done yet, it’s plain I’m the slowest construction worker on the planet! Still, I really love how it is coming together and I feel I’m nearing the home stretch on the galley area (FN1). Here are some pictures of my (glacial) progress on the kiln shack:
From the outside with my “Re Store” window (it swings open on hinges — $16 for the window, $2.50 for the hinges):
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Vantage point from atop the kiln. To the left is a kitty ladder — out of sight behind the kitty ladder are the steps entering the galley area. The steps into the work pit are to the right side of this picture, but not visible:
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FN1: I call the middle level the “galley” because Furutani likened anagama kilns to an overturned boat hull. The lowest level is for working the ship, the middle level for cooking and relaxing. Here is a sideview of the pit, roughly to scale:
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I video taped a little during the sixth firing, imported the tape into my laptop, and then let it languish for the last five months. I’ve been wanting to recover the 15gb of hard drive space it took up, and I was finally bored enough to stay up all night, cut it into little bits, and paste together a four minute clip.
You’ll see the anagama being fed, make a tiny steam tornado, and breathe fire. When the fire is pouring out the chimney, it’s like a river of bright water rushing over rapids. I could watch that almost endlessly.
One part may need a little explaining: about midway through the video, and at about the hottest temperature during the firing, I take out a “pull”. A “pull” is a piece specifically made to be pulled from the kiln so that the amount of glaze build-up can be evaluated. Pulls are crucial because the end of the anagama firing is determined by how well the pieces have developed ash glaze. Temperature is obviously a factor, but cones typically flatten out by the end of the first day of the three to four day wood firing period — where cones really fall down, is that they say nothing about the level of glaze build-up. By loading a few pulls, the glaze level can be checked quite thoroughly.
Without further ado, here are links to the video. Note: quicktime format; both are the same content but the 20mb clip is better quality, though a somewhat hefty download. I’d suggest doing a “save as” on the link as it might take five minutes or so even with a broadband connection.
~6mb video clip, really low quality
~20mb video clip, acceptable quality
