Kiln Building in 1990 -A pictorial essay.

After I stopped renting premises for my pottery, I had a big heap of materials, and the equipment I'd not managed to sell, racks and so forth, and a couple of big stacks of second hand firebricks on what had once been a garden at home.

I had a bit of space inside, enough to make a few pots, and just across the yard was a factory unit which made furniture frames out of kiln dried hardwood. It costs a business like that a lot of money shipping the offcuts away, so it was only natural that my brother and I put all the old fireplaces in the house back into use, installing a woodfired cast-iron stove with a water heating coil, too.

And of course, it was only natural that a pyromaniac potter would decide to knock down the raku kiln and build a nice little woodfire kiln. 

The kiln was a mashup, a hybrid. Well, up to the arch it was a strightforward Fred Olsen Fastfire,  I'd been in correspondence with Nils Lou some time previously, and he'd sent me his plans for what looks like a terrific kiln, the Minnesota Flat-Top, which I'd always planned to be my studio kiln, the place I eventually ended up renting refused to let me have a flame-fired kiln, due to their insurer's fears, and ignorance of the nature of kilns. So I had been all-electric there.

The MFT's roof was a compression structure, which allowed it to remain flat, with no fear of collapse. I liked that. I've built arches the hard way, cutting and shaping. With this, it's just standard bricks, on end, lightly buttered with clay slip, and clamped up by steel bars acting on the corners. I think I put hard firebricks in the corners to take the crush-load a bit better.

Here's a blow-by blow photosaga.

Concrete slab, 6", with reinforcing mesh, followed by a layer of flat-laid hard firebrick.

Firebox walls are hard firebrick. Two opposing equal fireboxes.

Floorslabs, from Butterley Brick, I paid for these, but they were very generous in letting me pick over their refractory seconds and scrap pile.

Walls were large K-23 insulating firebrick, bought very cheaply after they'd been used for the international potters-camp kils at Aberystwith. Lots of people wanted them, but few had the ability to truck them away. I had a big van and trailer.

Almost there!

Dill-the-Dog getting underfoot and stealing bits of wood to chomp on.

The chimney seen here was for use in drying-out, this was 8", it really needed a 10", rising to 12ft above the kiln floor. Door was bricked out of normal size K-23s, bagwalls were hard firebrick. Grates were welded out of 1" rebar, and angle sections, all sourced from construction site salvage.

Firing in 6 hours to 1300degrees C (2370degrees F)(stoneware), was quite easy, though I preferred closer to twelve hours, with a small fire lit the night before in the front firebox to ensure a dry start to the main firing.

Not too long after it was built, my source of dry hardwood went bust! Damn! No big problem, though, it could be fired on oil or gas with only a little alteration.

However. I was persuaded to start making stuff for a couple or three other potters, in their workshops, which I did for a while, making things that they could envisage but  lacked the ability to throw, so it was a mix of production and tutoring,  I still wanted to do my own thing though,  so I stopped all that, and started working in building and plumbing in order to try get the  taxman off my back. I was so disillusioned by my experiences with shops and galleries defaulting on payment to me, and me going into bankruptcy with a tax man threatening me on a regular basis, that I abandoned potting altogether until last year.

On the Difficulties of Visiting One's Valentine.

My Valentine!

She's my Valentine.

She's my poet,
She is the one,
The only one,

She has the key to my heart.

And she makes me feel like this....

And she sets me on fire!




She's my Red Dirt Mule!

(The hearts are pieces by the Dutch artist, Frank Tjepkema)

Walter, Mesmerised by a Cutie.

I've got two scanners, though they're rarely used. But re-commissioning the computer after disc-fail, led to me noticing that I had all this stuff sitting idle, and I've got piles of stuff.... Like these cartoons, by "Cull". My great-uncle Walter worked with Cull, they were both draughtsmen, with the air-ministry, drawing blueprints during the war and throughout the fifties, when I was little, littler than I am now, anyway, visits to Uncle Walter and Auntie Sybil were ofter spent drawing. Walter had an endless supply of drawing paper, mostly of wing-root design on top secret v-bombers, or engine details of delta-wing supersonic fighters.
The Russians would have found a jackpot if they'd ever turned our childish drawings over to see the back.
I drew aircraft, my sister drew horses. She still draws horses, and makes money doing so.
Cull drew wing-roots. And the people he worked with, and mystery buxom cuties. Here's Walt, mesmerised by a buxom cutie in uniform....

Coming Home

Quite a long time ago I used to live in a little town in the middle of the Baltic.

"Fart"

I've Been Rootling Through Old Photos

After I had to close the pottery, after working with Earth, Fire, and Water, I decided to work with Air,  and became a Wind Turbine Maintenance Engineer. It's a very responsible post, as without these things there would be no wind....
The top picture's me and my little brother, fitting a new wind-speed sensor assembly on the top of a turbine.
The dark blobs and streaks on the tower were due to  premature failure of the seals meant to hold grease in.
We had to hire a big cherrypicker to get up there with a hot pressure-washer and scrubbing brushes...
Oh, and the bearings all got replaced, needing a very big crane on site. The cherry-picker guy chickened out because we were getting pushed about so much by the wind, which cost us an extra couple of days.

A Potter's Nightmare

Or "Things That Go Boom in the Night"

Although I often fired that kiln, this did NOT happen on my watch! What happened here was that the kiln was started on small pilot burners, left a couple of hours, then the gas was turned on to the main burners... But three of the four pilot burners went out. And my boss didn't check, or purge the kiln atmosphere before turning on the big gas valve... so it filled with a nice mix of forced air and gas, and... bricks rained out of the sky.

This was in, ahem... 1977. yes, children, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. 

I learned a few useful lessons from that. And after the kiln was rebuilt, I learned that combustion experts are not infallible, and that fire extinguishers only last a few seconds.

The gas valve guys had come and fitted new flame-failure devices to the kiln, and were testing the auto proportioning valve. They'd run the kiln up to red heat, and decided to go for lunch whilst it cooled a bit. 

So without telling anybody, they popped the door, left it open about an inch. Just above the kiln door was a roof with wooden timbers.

Our clay pugging part timer went into the kiln room, let out a shriek, and yelled "We're on FIRE!", so I yelled to everyone (There were twelve workers) to get out, and call the fire brigade, whilst I heroically ran in the opposite direction, toward the fire... (see how brave I am?) (or stupid?). I grabbed the first extinguisher, aimed it at the flames and ""PHOOOOOOF! it said, and went limp. Yep. phoooooof. No foreplay so to speak, just hit the button, a white jet, and a fire extinguisher hanging limply.

What a disappointment. And the fire was still going. Oh. And the air was filled with choking, eye watering, blinding white powder.  The fire was going even better than before, right up to the apex of the roof. I ran back into the main room, grabbed the foam extinguisher, and tried that. Oooh baby.. the fire loved that, gimme some more, she panted.... but that foam extinguisher? Shppurrrtttttt! tt! tt t... And then, that was it. That fire, she was still going, crackling and banging and moaning. Your extremely brave correspondent said "Fuck it", and left the building, coughing and wheezing .
By which time heehawheehaw! the fire engine was roaring in through the gate.

It turned out, don't-cha know, that my technique was wrong.

The firemen went up the roof with axes, ripped the tiles off and blasted about a zillion gallons of water on it. Well, yes, of course, they smashed a couple of weeks' worth of production, but they saved the kiln room and the glazing room.

Just around then, a white van turned up with two gas furnace experts, who'd had a pub lunch. With beer. And missed all the excitement they'd caused. Their company's insurance faced a big claim, and I hope those two were sacked.

After that, I went on a fire training course. I've forgotten most of it now. But my technique is better.

Despite my heroism, I didn't even get a medal.

Seriously, potter-friends,  learn what to do in a fire. I know. kilns are good at NOT starting fires. But we can all be stupid at times.
Get the right extinguishers. Your local fire department will often do free training sessions. A fire extinguisher comes and goes in about fourteen seconds.