Dannon Rhudy on mon 24 jun 02
I'm back from a pleasant week at Hay Creek. Mel and Kurt
did their usual magic, stirred folks to make extra effort, kept
an unobtrusive eye on everything, and somehow kept thirty -some
people well fed and content. There's
always an interesting mix of people, and this time was no
exception. For the clay group, there was throwing, handbuilding,
tile-making. Fired the little electric/gas combination kiln - worked
beautifully. But first we had to realize that we'd forgotten to pull
the little kaowool plug from the bottom before we introduced=20
the gas. Doug Gray and I were each politely insisting that the
blame was ours, but in truth I was the one who forgot it. He didn't
even know it was in there. The flame from the little burner was
spreading all across the base of the kiln. I kept looking, thinking
"this did not happen last time I fired this". After a half hour or
so, I suddenly had an image of the little plug in there. Ahem.
Very difficult to get reduction when there's no entry for the
flame.......pulled out the plug, all was well. The train kiln fired=20
smoothly twice, so Kurt finally smiled. There
were some adventures with various Rube Goldberg devices
for sawdust injection. Didn't work, but putting them together
was fun. Made some adjustments to the bottom of the fire box
for the second firing, and the kiln just zoomed up to temp. We
fired with off-cuts of walnut from a cabinet making place - all
small sticks of dry hard wood. Easy stoking, and cool weather.
Usually, the day(s) we fire the wood kiln are 95=BAF, but we were
charmed this time. =20
It is always refreshing and renewing to go to a place where a
wide variety of people are just busy doing what they do, observing
everyone at work and the general atmosphere of experimentation.
Amazing that people put in twelve-fifteen hour days because they
WANT to, up early, working late, doing whatever needs to be=20
done, and laughing a great deal. The only arguments were over
who got to drive the tractor(s). The answer was - Mel.
regards
Dannon Rhudy
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