"Terry Sullivan/Nottingham Center for the Arts. San Marcos," on tue 7 sep 99
For Tony and others that don't think there is any reason to "fast fire" with
wood. ( and I wish to hell Fred Olson was on this list to speak......).
Built an Olson "Fast Freddie" once and the little sucker went to cone 10 in
less than 6 hours on much less than 1/2 cord of finely split dry pine.
Stoking was a breeze and not much work at all. We were all quite amazed at
how easy and fast this little bugger fired.
Now; why would one want to do this ???
Well this was about a 30 cu. ft. kiln and did a very nice job of producing a
standard cone 10 reduction firing such as a gas kiln would in about the same
time. The wood was free and took little effort to prepare.
So if you were in a place where gas was difficult to get and/or to expensive
to get and use, then this would be a very simple alternative.
Fred Olson has a Fast Freddie tacked onto the back of his little Anagama at
his own place in Moutain View, CA. Stacks it with bisque and/or standard
glazed cone 10 stuff. The two kilns share the same stack. When the Anagama is
done the fast freddie is about at bisque temp. and can be shut down or fired
through to cone 10. Nice use of the energy.
Wood is an energy source. Just like natural gas and Propane. Tons and tons
are thrown out every day in most any city in the US. Why not use it.
In many countries potters are using wood to fire kilns for regular
earthanware and higher glaze work. Doesn't have to be for the flashing and
ash we have come to prize in the US lately.
Terry Sullivan
Nottingham Center for the Arts
And just to set the record straight. I love all that flashin and ash. I
personaly fire pieces to cone 10-12 many times and dump hundreds of pounds of
mesquite charcoal on them each time until the desired amount of ash melt is
there.
Would almost kill for one of Volkos's newer pieces.
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