Gary Navarre on wed 16 jun 04
Sure enough crew,
The cooker is rather simple. Take 4 (or was it 6) hard brick, make a
square on streacher course, stack overlaping 3-5 courses. Start small
fire in bottom with the material to be processed and cover almost
1/2-compleatly with a scrap of kiln shelf and let asmolder. As the brick
heats up and a slow draft developes add a course or two from time to
time along with more material to burn, actually smolder no real flame. I
think Koie stacked the cooker about chest high at most. Keep adding
material untill you are satisfied there is enough ash for a test or
batch of glaze. The key is to have enough air in base to keep the embers
going with no real flame and caped enough to not let ash escape out the
top. Cap compleatly when done and let cool till cold so draft is dead,
less ash will be lost when taken apart. Collect the ash when there is no
breeze. Wash ash,dry and use however you like. This gives you all the
ash including the fine particles which go into melt first. Mind you this
takes some time,it's not like using a burning barrel and a weed burner.
But, what the hell, we're all livin on clay time anyway.
Up here I made a cooker prototype out of sand brick and flue liner Peter
had laying around for a spell. I placed it where the stack of the new
kiln will be built and will post the photos in Yahoo!Photos in the next
few days for a rough visual, a picture is good after the thousand words
unless you got the picture. I'll post them anyway cause I need the
practice. Say do ya think Fotki looks easyer on the eyes than yahoo? I
don't have a web page yet.
Good luck. Stay in there!
Gary Navarre
Navarre Pottery
Norway, Michigan, USA, Earth
"Better than yesterday, not as good as tomorrow." G.in da U.P.
Gary Navarre on sat 19 jun 04
Hay crew,
I was asked for a discription of Ryoji Koie's traditional ash cooker
last week and can't find the inquiers posts so here it is anyway again.
The Koie ash cooker is rather simple. Take 4 (or was it 6) hard brick,
make a
square on streacher course, stack overlaping 3-5 courses. Start small fire
in bottom with the material to be processed and cover almost
1/2-compleatly with a scrap of kiln shelf and let asmolder. As the brick
heats up and a slow draft developes add a course or two from time to time
along with more material to burn, actually smolder no real flame. I think
Koie stacked the cooker about chest high at most. Keep adding material in
the top untill you are satisfied there is enough ash for a batch of
glaze. The key is to have enough air in base to keep the embers going with
no real flame and caped enough to not let ash escape out the top. Cap
compleatly when done and let cool till cold so draft is dead, less ash
will be lost when taken apart. Collect the ash when there is no breeze.
Wash ash, and use however you like. This gives you all the ash including
the fine particles which go into melt first. Mind you this takes some
time,it's not like using a burning barrel and a weed burner. But, what the
heehaw, we're all livin on clay time anyway.
Up here I made a cooker prototype out of sand brick and flue liner Peter
had laying around for a spell. I placed it where the stack of the new kiln
will be built and will post the photos in Yahoo!Photos in the next few
days for a rough visual, a picture is good after the thousand words unless
you got the picture. I'll post them anyway cause I need the practice.
Good luck. Stay in there!
Gary Navarre
Navarre Pottery
Norway, Michigan, USA, Earth
"Better than yesterday, not as good as tomorrow." G.in da U.P.
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