Caroline and Hedley Saunders on tue 17 mar 98
I am to have a go at firing a small pot in a kiln made from paper, I would
appreciate any advice and tips from Clayarters who have tried this.
Tomorrow I have to make the kiln and it will be set alight on Wednesday so
please email me directly. I have not been able to find any information on
the Internet so if someone knows of a site I would appreciate the URL
Thanks
Caroline
delphin@eclipse.co.uk
the cat lady on wed 18 mar 98
I've attached a copy of an article I took off clayart a while
back. Hope it helps.
At 08:35 AM 3/17/98 EST, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I am to have a go at firing a small pot in a kiln made from paper, I would
>appreciate any advice and tips from Clayarters who have tried this.
>Tomorrow I have to make the kiln and it will be set alight on Wednesday so
>please email me directly. I have not been able to find any information on
>the Internet so if someone knows of a site I would appreciate the URL
>
>Thanks
>Caroline
>delphin@eclipse.co.uk
>
>
I attended a firing workshop a couple of years ago, and one of the days we
made and fired paper kilns. We shaped the kilns out of chicken wire (cone
shapes) leaving openings at the bottom edges at three or four points to allow
airflow and a place to feed in fuel. We mixed up big buckets of slip (I think
it was clay which fired to cone 9). Then we tore pages out of glossy
magazines, and dipped the pages (about 3 or 4 thick) into the slip and covered
the chicken wire. Also, at the top we made an opening for a chimney, and used
a coffee can with both ends cut out to make the chimney. We continued to
layer the slip drenched paper (probably about 5 separate layers) on the
chicken wire and then let it dry.
We used charcoal for the fuel. There's an article about this in Ceramics
Monthly, an issue from 1992, I believe.
Firing paper kilns was a fun experience, but quite a lot of work, and very
smoky!
Janet
---------------------------------------------------------------------
sam - alias the cat lady
Melbourne, Ontario
SW Ontario CANADA
http://www.geocities.com/paris/3110
Caroline and Hedley Saunders on thu 19 mar 98
Thought some people might like to know what I did and how I got on!
The idea was to use paper as a fuel for firing a pot. I threw a small pot
about 4" diameter, using red earthenware (Valentine's) with 20% fine grog
added. The surface was burnished then the pot allowed to completely dry
out.
The pot was wrapped, upside down, in newspaper by first rolling up 3 sheets
of the paper at a time into long sausages.....as tightly as possible. I
coiled two spirals which formed the base of the kiln then wound the paper
around the pot. The first layer directly next to the pot was rolled from a
colour magazine......this is better quality paper with a higher china clay
content and less combustible.....the idea was to protect the pot and aim for
an even heating. Finally I put another spiral on the top of the whole
bundle.
The weather was dry, sunny with a gentle wind, pretty much perfect
conditions for the firing. In order to try and keep the heat even I placed
the bundle inside a large dustbin (lid off). I placed it on a small bed of
shavings and scrunched up newspaper so that it would catch fire evenly which
it did. After an hour it was gently smouldering so I put a cover over the
bin hoping to maximise the heat work.
Result: well the pot survived which I am very pleased with :-) It even has
quite a nice ring to it which implies it must have reached 700 degrees C or
so. One side is less smoked than the other, I had placed some dried banana
skin next to the pot and that has given soft markings, the dried seaweed I
placed seems to have acted as a resist to the smoke and I am not so keen on
the effects. The final pot is very like one from a sawdust firing but it
was quite a long job rolling up the newspaper and constructing the kiln. It
was more fun to watch than a sawdust firing and considerably quicker....I
removed the pot after 2 hours letting it cool finally in the open air to
make sure the final cooling was even.
Caroline Saunders
delphin@eclipse.co.uk
Lisa P Skeen on sat 21 mar 98
Sam:
Seems like there was an article about this type of thing in a CM last
fall. All my books are in storage at this point, so I can't look it up,
but I was interested in trying it when I read the article. The person
who did it had sort of a chimney with two arms at the bottom, and a grate
in the center. It appeared that the ware (glazed or unglazed?) was set
on the grate, and the two arms were fireboxes for wood, etc. to burn.
If anyone else knows more about this, I would be interested in hearing
about it. Our house will be finished (thank the Goddess) in a matter of
DAYS now, so I'll be able to try some new stuff once I get my studio set
up.
Lisa Skeen, Living Tree Pottery and Soaps
http://www.uncg.edu/~lpskeen
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and holds
the universe together.
On Wed, 18 Mar 1998 08:54:14 EST the cat lady
writes:
>I attended a firing workshop a couple of years ago, and one of the
>days we>made and fired paper kilns. We shaped the kilns out of chicken
wire
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Kollin Baker on wed 25 mar 98
Quick reply,
The article in CM was in the short info section at the front of the
magazine. Anyway I believe it was a workshop in Germany.
KBaker
Pi Pottery and Design
512.323.8274
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