Lorene on sun 1 may 05
Hi all,
I'm a K-12 teacher and we're planning a pit fire at my place with
about 8 senior high students (in about 2 weeks!) . I've never done it
before...got advice?! I've looked at the archives and many Web sites
that deal with this and am not sure of the best way for a novice to
proceed successfully and safely with a bunch of even more novice
novices!
--=20
Lorene -
in the Minnesota northwoods on the=20
beautiful Rainy River border with Canada
Lorene on mon 2 may 05
Great photos showing the whole sequence! I have a couple of
questions: what are "cover sherds"? Looks like they protect the
pots...are they ceramic? ...Looks like clay. And, what is the thing at
the end of the pit that looks like a cover? It was not put on?
Thank you!
Lorene
On 5/2/05, William Lucius wrote:
> This is how we do it: http://groups.msn.com/LeuppKilnConferenceoups.msn.com/LeuppKilnConference>
>=20
> William A. Lucius
> Institute for Archaeological Ceramic Research
> 845 Hartford Dr.
> Boulder, CO 80305
> iacr@msn.com
>=20
> _________________________________________________________________________=
_____
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>=20
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>=20
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at melpots@pclin=
k.com.
>=20
--=20
Lorene -
in the Minnesota northwoods on the=20
beautiful Rainy River border with Canada
William Lucius on mon 2 may 05
This is how we do it: =
http://groups.msn.com/LeuppKilnConferenceConference>=20
William A. Lucius
Institute for Archaeological Ceramic Research
845 Hartford Dr.
Boulder, CO 80305
iacr@msn.com
William Lucius on wed 4 may 05
The term "cover sherds" refers to previously broken vessel fragments =
(sherds in archaeological jargon in this hemisphere, shards in the Old =
World) used by ethnographic potters to minimize "fire clouds" (those =
shiny black carbon spots that occur when burning wood fuel touches the =
pot furing the firing). Although we generally have no shortage of =
broken pots, we have found it more appropriate to slab out and bisque =
our own cover sherds. There is some thought that their use in pit kilns =
also creates a microenvironment something like a saggar but I personally =
doubt that.
That board at the end of the pit is nothing more than a 3/8" piece of =
plywood used to protect a laptop computer and digital recording =
pyrometer hooked up to two pyrometer probes that are placed in the pit =
after the warming fire. The radiant heat from the pit firing is intense =
but so far we have only managed to lightly char the plywood - when we =
actually cause it to catch fire just from radiant heat we will know that =
we have achieved a high temperature firing. The time/temperature chart =
of the firing was created from the pyrometer data. If you look =
carefully at some of the photos you can actually make out the pyrometer, =
laptop and probes.
Your questions remind me that to the observer what we do during a pit =
firing is bizarre. Thanks for the opportunity to suggest that such is =
only partly true.
William A. Lucius
iacr@msn.com
| |
|
