Steve Dalton on wed 27 mar 02
Greetings everybody,
Yesterday it happened...Og and I fired the newly built gas kiln!
Dropped ^11. Didn't intend to, Og got a little too carried away, seeing
fire for the first time coming from a metal pipe!! LOL If some of you don't
know who Og is, he's the first true potter(Check out the archives for 'First
Generation Passing.')
11 hours from start to finish. Oxyprobe worked great! From peeking into
the spy holes this morning, it looks like a nice even reduction from top to
bottom! When I say dropping ^11, I mean I dropped 11 almost flat. It's at
about the 8 o'clock position. I'm going to calculate the amount of gas I
used, so I'll have an estimate or atleast an average to compare with the
next firings.
I had to re-adjust the pressure regulators, I opened them up when the firing
started to slow down. I'll watch them for the next firing to see if they
are open too much.
I just figured out the amount of gas used, 44 gallons for 102 pots. That's
better than what the gas company estimated. They told me 66 gallons per
firing. The average I just came up with includes, reduction from 011 on up
to shut off and 1 of the burners not working properly...the burner might be
plugged up with junk. I might also need to re-adjust the burner manifold,
the burners are about 3 inches below the ports and slightly off center with
the ports. The rightside more than the left.
I even calculated the price per pot, Og had to quite since he ran out of
fingers and toes to count from. Based on 100 pots in each firing and the
price for my next refill($1.05) and rounding up, I average $.47 per pot.
I'm thinking though of just putting $1 from each pot as it sells away into
the kitty for refills. I want to allow for inflation, tax and the slow
season when I'm mainly cranking out the pots.
Enough of the math. I want to talk more about my pots!!! Mamo over slip
looks great. I caught sight of one of my jugs with that combo on it. I
finger swipped through the slip and then dipped it into Mamo. I think it
was David Hendley that gave me the idea a while back in one of his posts.
Thanks for the idea.
Planning firing #2. I have 127 pots I might be able to squeeze in. I'll
see. Firing #3 will be bisque.
--
Steve Dalton
Clear Creek Pottery
Snohomish, Wa
sdpotter@gte.net
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