Earl Brunner on thu 24 sep 98

Why was anyone preheating,candling, glaze firings anyway? I've only blown one
freshly glazed pot up in a glaze fire (it was a lulu though).

Craig Martell on thu 24 sep 98

>I challenge folks out there to at least
>fire your next glaze load without preheating. Save some time and fuel and
see
>if you can tell the difference. I've surely trampled on sacred ground
here....


Hey:

In the strictest sense of the word, "preheat", there isn't any way to fire
without preheating. I mean, my kiln usually preheats for about 3-4 weeks
before I fire. OK, I'll cut the humor! But preheat means, prior to the
application of ANY sort of temp rise, doesn't it? An Oxymoron??

I start my kiln dead cold in the morning and am usually at about 80% total
BTU input in three hours. I go to full at cone 06, which is 6 hrs from
dead cold start. I'm at cone 10 in about 12 hrs and hold for one hr. or so.
It takes about 45 gals of Propane to do a firing. I have a k-26 hot face so
I'm using a bit more than one would with k-23's. The kiln is 66 cubic feet
total. I don't see any reason to fire at low BTU input overnight, unless I
were doing really large thick work, or single firing. Actually, I don't
even candle the salt kiln which is all raw glazed, single fire work. I do
slow it down quite a bit until all the water of plasticity has been driven
off the ware.

gonna preheat a muffin, Craig Martell in Oregon :)

Joyce Lee on fri 25 sep 98

Potters who are able to fire fast with no pre-heating, candling, soaking
etc and still produce the pots they like are very fortunate. I pre-heat,
candle, fire slowly, and soak because my lumpy-dumpies, and finally, at
last not-so-lumpy-dumpy but still height challenged pots, need all the
help they can get. For those of us with scattered-spattered learning who
are no longer newbies, but who definitely don't qualify as
beenthere-donethat-designedtheteeshirts either, slow is the way to go.
I labor with my glazes, loving every minute of it though many, many of
the final products are not what I had in mind at all. That's part of the
excitement of learning and struggling to improve. That's why I stay with
pottery. If it were easy, I'd have been long gone. But to fire in such
a manner that might cause my pots (even one pot) to blow up would send
me back to needlework. Besides, the mystery of the fire now that I can
actually occasionally SEE the "history of the firing" on the glazed pots
creates much of the magic. By the way, this is a concept about which I
used to think you pros were just deluding yourselves, or flat out making
up. My trust was dramatically renewed the first time I recognized that a
thick, not too badly shaped, copper red pot was actually green except
for a big dark red area where the pot had sort of hung over the shelf
just above the flame. (This red, round area was also almost circularly
split from the green right on the curve. I still have that pot. A fast
firing would have surely killed it on the spot.) Understanding at least
some of why and how this happened was a thrill for me. Part of my belief
that I'm actually going to eventually BE a potter is derived from
feeling progressively more in control of each part of the process.
Guess I know where I stand in the competition between the turtle and the
snail...

Joyce
In the Mojave enjoying the parade of cars down our dirt road on their
way to work and school, and knowing I'm gonna' sit on the patio and
drink in the beauty of our scrub acreage along with a second cuppa'.

Andrew Buck on fri 9 oct 98

On Thu, 24 Sep 1998, Earl Brunner wrote:

> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Why was anyone preheating,candling, glaze firings anyway? I've only blown one
> freshly glazed pot up in a glaze fire (it was a lulu though).
>
----------------------------------
Earl,

The reason people preheat the pots is that it is the way it was done in
the school they went to when they learned how to make pottery. At many of
the schools that I went to, it was the instructor or a technician that
loaded and fired the kilns. It was only a very few, and dedicated,
students that took the initiative to even help in preparing shelves or
loading. In these situations, due to the shear bulk of items being
produced in the very popular classes, the kilns were loaded and fired with
as much stuff and as fast as possible just to stay ahead of the demand.
Pots, sculptures, and boat anchors, were grabbed up as soon as they showed
up on the "to be fired" shelves. Of course, some of these treasures were
leather hard or wetter. The preheat, in this situation, served two
purposes. (1) It gave the really wet items, especially the boat anchors,
time to get to bone dry. And (2) It gave the loader, who usually did not
get paid overtime, to get the kiln fired in just a little over his normal
working day. It is understandable that, with the lack of instruction in
the actual firing, students would assume that this practice would be
necessary in all firings.

Knowing the above, you should also realize that I do not condemn the
teachers or schools that teach pottery in this incomplete manner. I think
that basicly the American system of education is not set up to teach
people to be professional potters. The Liberal Arts system of education
has, as it's basis, the idea that exposure to as much of lifes different
facets as possible will exercise the human brain in a way that will
maximize creativity and problem solving abilities. The fact that we, who
have learned to be potters coming out of this system of education have
done so at all, is tribute to our problem solving abilities. I think we
are more able to appreciate and explore the application of new
technology and ideas because of this. Just the fact that we conceder
changing our views on how we build and fire our kilns, or for that matter
exchange information freely that used to be trade secrets, is proof to me
that the system works. Would we be the "well rounded" people that we need
to be otherwise? Would the "A Potter Is..." Tee shirts read differently
if we learned in another way?

Learn from the best you can find, but, do not hesitate to challenge the
known.

Stepping down from the soap box.

Andy Buck
Raincreek Pottery
Port Orchard, Washington