WoodKilnFire_3ed

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wood kiln firingtechniques & tips

plans and instructions for making a wood-fired kiln

and firing with wood

| Third Edition |

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www.ceramicartsdaily.org | Copyright © 2011, Ceramic Publications Company | Wood Firing Techniques & Tips | Second Edition | i




wood kiln firing techniques & tips

| Second Edition |


www.ceramicartsdaily.org | Copyright © 2011, Ceramic Publications Company | Wood Firing Techniques & Tips | Second Edition | i




wood kiln firing techniques & tips

| Second Edition |


www.ceramicartsdaily.org | Copyright © 2012, Ceramic Publications Company | Wood Kiln Firing Techniques & Tips | 1

Wood Kiln Firing Techniques & Tips Plans and Instructions for Making a Wood-fired Kiln and Firing with Wood

Since humans first began to understand how fire hardened clay, we have been making ceramics, both in pits and in wood kilns. Now, with so many fuel options available to the potter, wood-fired kilns are more of a choice than a necessity. While wood firing isn’t easy, the results are incomparable. The work in wood kilns reveals the story of the firing, with pieces showing ash deposits and the path of the flame through the kiln. But not all wood kilns are built alike. Some are made for flashing from the flame, some are made for melted rivulets of ash and others still are designed to bury the ware in ash and make it crusty and craggy. Regardless of your wood-firing aesthetic, the wood kiln plans and diagrams in this helpful guide will show you several ways to get started understanding and building wood kilns.

Wood Firing Basicsby W. Lowell BakerEach wood kiln has its own firing characteristics, but there are some basic principles that hold true for any kiln using wood as fuel. Getting the basics right means better chances for great results

Gayagama Kiln Buildby Shana Angela SalaffGyan Daniel Wall is a ceramic artist who builds wood-fired kilns using an ancient Middle-Eastern bricklaying technique developed for creating vaults and domes on houses and mosques. Shana Salaff documented the process this July at the Gaya Ceramic Arts Center in Bali, Indonesia.

Hai Kaburi: Creating Consistent Crusty Wood-Fire Resultsby Lee MiddlemanIf you want crusty pots in a wood-fired kiln, you almost have to put them in or near the firebox, where they will be exposed to a lot of ash. This kiln design puts the firebox on top of the ware chamber, so the entire kiln load is exposed to ash as if it were in a firebox.

The Manabigamaby John ThiesA cross between an anagama and a groundhog-style kiln, the manabigama is a wood kiln that’s within everyone’s reach. Small, compact and simple to fire, this wood kiln can be fired by one person in a matter of hours—not days.

Wood-fired Raku Kilnby Nesrin DuringWood firing isn’t just about high firing. You can build a simple raku kiln and fire your work with wood to get stunning results. Nesrin During constructs a simple kiln that’s easy to stoke and reaches raku temperatures without a lot of effort.

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Wood Firing Basicsby W. Lowell Baker

Wood burns in two distinctly different stages. The first, and most obvious, is the burning of gasses produced when wood is heated. Wood begins to gasify at about 500°F. The

second is the burning of the charcoal. This happens, for the most part, after the materials that form the gasses have been driven out of the wood. The coals in your ash pit serve to provide some heat to the kiln and to gasify the freshly stoked wood, mostly through radiant heat energy. As the gasses burn in a wood kiln, they typically produce very long flames. These flames can be easily over 30 feet long. Charcoal produces very hot, but very short, flames. The flame from charcoal is normally less than a few inches long. All of these issues are relevant to building and firing any wood-burning kiln.

One of the demonstrations I take my students through when we begin talking about kiln design is to bring an oxygen-acetylene torch into the classroom. If the torch is ignited with only acetylene (fuel), it produces a very long, very dirty flame. One can quickly pass his or her hand through this flame without any real danger, but it will be covered with black soot. As oxygen is added, the flame shortens and becomes significantly hotter. As the flame shortens with the changing oxygen-fuel ratio, smaller flame tips appear in the center of the flame. This is the place where the flame is the hottest. The more defined the tips are, the hotter the flame. You want this part of the flame in the firing chamber of a kiln, not in the firebox or the flue.

If you have a small kiln and a fuel that develops a long flame, you need to either redesign your kiln to use the length of the flame, or simply shorten the flame to bring the hottest part of the fire back into the chamber where the pots are stacked. As with the acetylene example, the

easiest way to shorten the flame and make it hotter is to add oxygen.

If you have electricity at the kiln site, adding a blower is one of the easiest and most controllable ways of adding oxygen.

A small squirrel-cage fan that will deliver about 100 cubic feet of air per minute will supply all the air you will need to fire a small kiln. You can fabricate a bolt-on connector to attach the pipe to the blower, or duct tape a piece of automotive tail pipe to the blower. You should realize that the end of the metal pipe will be subjected to a great deal of heat and will have to be replaced after a number of firings. Place the pipe in the ash pit of your firebox and adjust the air-input damper to the desired air flow. You will find that the flame around the blow pipe will be very intense. This system will allow you to fire your kiln with a much smaller firebox than would normal-ly be needed in a natural-draft kiln. The smaller firebox will require more frequent stoking, simply because it will not hold as much fuel as a larger box.

Increasing the flue height would be the last choice in a small kiln. If you do this, you must be certain that you have air intake ports and a flue cross section large enough to allow easy circulation of hot gasses. A damper will be essential for control. This will be less responsive than a forced-air system and will vary more due to atmospheric conditions, because it depends on lowered pressure to bring air into the kiln.

So, more air shortens the flame and more air increases the temperature of the coal bed to help gasify your fuel more quickly.

W. Lowell Baker is currently Professor of Art at the University of Ala-bama, and has taught workshops for nearly 40 years.

Each wood kiln has its own characteristics for firing, but there are some basic

principles that hold true for any kiln using wood as a fuel.


Gayagama Kiln Buildby Shana Angela Salaff

The Australia- and New Zealand-based Gyan Daniel Wall heard of the Gaya Ceramic Arts Center in Bali, Indonesia when he met its direc-tor, Hillary Kane, at a wood fire conference in

Tasmania last year. Already planning to visit Bali, Wall ended up spending much of that trip at the Gaya studio, making pots and helping to fire their first wood kiln. This year, he was invited back as interim director and to fa-cilitate the building of two more wood-fired kilns at the center’s new studio location. The first of these was an anagama and took form during a one-week kiln-building workshop followed by a two-week pottery making and fir-ing workshop.

During the first week of July, Wall and participants in the workshop built the Gayagama. For this kiln, Wall used a Middle-Eastern bricklaying technique where arch bricks are laid diagonally against each other, causing each brick to be supported by the one underneath it. Thus, aside from two temporary forms used to support the front and back

arches, no internal support was needed. The Gayagama was primarily constructed from raw handmade bricks made from local materials. The combination of the use of raw bricks and the self-supporting arch technique enabled the build to be closer to the kind of fluid and intuitive pro-cess that one associates more with making ceramic vessels than with kiln building. Though Wall’s basic plan called for the general dimensions of the kiln, many decisions were made on site. The result is a beautiful, organic-look-ing, and well-functioning kiln.

Origins of the TechniqueWhen asked about the origins of the technique, and

how he came to use it, Wall explained, “As far as I am aware, Australian wood-fire potter/kiln builder Daniel Lafferty was the first to use this technique for build-ing kilns in modern times. The building technique is originally from the Middle East and is used for building brick domes and vaults without the aid of a form-work

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structure. Daniel came across this technique in a book called Ceramic Houses, written by Nader Kalili, and decided to translate it into kiln building. However, recently while re-searching kilns on the Internet, I came across an image of an ancient kiln in Thailand that also used this building method.

“Daniel is a close friend and mentor. I first met him and experienced his kiln-building techniques at the Hyperclay Gulgong event in 1998. I helped on a raw adobe brick anagama build that he facilitated at the Tanja wood-fire event in 2002, hosted by Yuri Wiedenhofer who had also built his kilns using this technique. I loved this simple free-form style of building using raw, handmade bricks, so that when it came time to build my own kiln that was the way to go.”

The building method appeals to Wall on many levels, and fits with his clay working methods and philosophy. “In my work in general, I love the feeling of freedom and the sense of self-reliance and connectedness I get from using minimal technology and sourcing materials from nature,” he explains. “I love en-gaging in the creative process in a very earthy and holistic way. I love the free-form style of building that this method allows; it is like making a big pot. The form evolves and unfolds during the building process. To me, working with raw materials, mak-ing work, designing, building, and firing kilns are all part of an integrated holistic co-creative process.”

The Building ProcessBefore the build began, a typical Balinese–style tile roof

was built over the kiln area. The dirt under the kiln, well compressed ahead of time, was graded at a slope of about 15 degrees. Staff at the Gaya CAC made over 900 bricks that were set out to dry —as much as the Balinese humidity would allow. During the workshop, participants learned how to make bricks, and added these to the stockpile (1).

Wall used kiln shelves and a center string line to map out the floor plan of the kiln and then created a sketch with the mea-surements. Once the workshop started, the kiln building began with digging in the footings for the walls and the steps for the floor, making the base of the kiln lower than the earth around it, creating natural insulation and support. The front and side-stoke firebox areas were dug out even lower to create under-floor air grates, with a duct running under the floor from the

1 Loo Jia Wen (l) and Tok Yu Xiang (r) learning how to form bricks using wooden molds, then refining them. 2 Subfloor, firebox, and base of wall.3 First four courses of raw bricks built up on the subfloor.4 Laying in the floor using hard brick placed on a thin layer of silica sand. 5 Creating the back arch using a bucket for support. 6 Setting up the first 45°-angle course off of the back arch.7 Laying in the first courses off the back arch.8 View of completed back arch, beginning of the roof, and walls with built-in side stoke holes.9 Loo Jia Wen (l) and Bruce McWhinney (r) building the front arch.

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firebox to the side-stoke that provided pre-heated air.Local soft red bricks were used for the foundations and

air grates of the fireboxes. These were laid with mortar made from the earth excavated out of the floor (2). In keeping with his philosophy of continual experimenta-tion, and because there was a surplus of red brick avail-able, Wall decided to use these extra bricks as an external support wall that was completed after the main walls were built. The chimney and walls were started using the raw brick and brick mortar, and the kiln grew in many direc-tions at once.

When the walls were a few courses high (3), the hard firebrick floor was laid out on a thin bed of silica sand (4). Wall wanted the floor to be made from durable hard brick, and for the floor to be separate from the walls so that it could be replaced in the future if needed. Next, the red brick outer wall was built up, along with the base of the chimney.

Once the area between the chimney and the back of the kiln was high enough, the back arch was created, using a bucket as a temporary arch support (5). Raw bricks were

shaved down on two sides to create tapered arch bricks. Spaces between the bricks were filled with mortar and then well compressed. The front arch was formed in the same way later in the process. After the key brick for each arch was hammered into place, the supports were removed. Once an arch was in place, the first arch course was laid diagonally over it at a 45-degree angle, with small chunks of brick filling in any large gaps (6). The second course of the back arch was laid in, supported by the first course and the side walls (7). Each successive course was stag-gered over the one before it. Side stoke holes were created (8) and blow holes were placed along the spine of the kiln. The front arch was built next. (9). The plastic bucket sup-ported the structure until the key brick was inserted (10). The chimney was built using raw bricks laid in a circular pattern (12), with a slot created for a kiln-shelf damper. The brick above the slot was keyed in place so that it would never sag or bulge outward.

The staggered, self-supporting courses built off of the front and back arches met in the middle with one final key brick (13). This created a strong barrel vault with a beauti-

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ful herringbone-like pattern (14). Final details that were added to the kiln included a pizza oven built between the back of the kiln and the chimney (over the back arch and first courses). The mortar around all bricks, both inside and out, was compressed as much as possible, and the interior of the kiln was washed with a thin mixture of clay and alumina hydrate (15). Once the kiln was essentially complete, insulating plaster was mixed by foot. Three lay-ers of plaster were spread over the kiln (16–17), for a total thickness of about 6 inches (15 cm). Wall added stone-work around the kiln that is both functional—providing steps to climb on to see through the air holes and further buttressing for the walls of the kiln—and aesthetically pleasing (18).

Kiln BlessingBecause the kiln is in Bali, local custom must be fol-

lowed. The Balinese, mainly Hindu, believe the gods must be given the correct offerings and prayers for any project to succeed. From rice fields to houses, vehicles to tools, marriages to cremations, the proper ceremonies are neces-sary. The Gayagama blessing took place on a drizzly day,

with the local village priest and an assistant presiding. Blessings include fruit, flowers, food, baskets, and other forms woven from banana and palm leaves.

Following the kiln-building workshop was the mak-ing and firing workshop. Wall kept a small fire going inside the kiln to dry out the bricks and plaster during the first week. After a week of making, pots were loaded green into the kiln; both kiln and contents were fired together. The firing took three days and culminated in a pizza party on the last night. At the end of the firing, the firebox was filled with fuel and the dampers were closed for an intense reduction. After about six hours, (at about 1050°C), Wall re-stoked the kiln and then intro-duced a small amount of water and a little more air to re-oxidize the iron and to coax a rich red color out of the pots. Most of these pots were made with a red clay/ball clay blend that Wall has christened “Bali Bagus” (bagus means “good” in Bahasa Indonesian).

the author Shana Angela Salaff is an artist and instructor living in Fort Collins, Colorado. In addition to contributing to Ceramics Monthly, she has written for Pottery Making Illustrated.

10 Gyan Wall and Bruce McWhinney finishing front arch.11 The roof is formed by laying in angled rows against the front and back arches. 12 The chimney is made of the same bricks, laid in a circular pattern. The damper is a kiln shelf. 13 Gyan Wall closes up the central arch from the inside.14 The top view of the kiln after closing central arch.15 The interior of the finished kiln, coated with a thin layer of clay and alumina hydrate.16 Plaster is mixed by foot, then coated over the raw bricks above the courses of red bricks that lined the lower portion of the wall. 17 Here Loo Jia Wen (l), Bruce McWhinney (c), and Gyan Wall (r) apply a layer of plaster. 18 The finished kiln showing the stonework outer wall. The pizza oven can be seen between the chimney and the back of the kiln.

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Hai KaburiCreating Consistent Crusty Wood-Fire Results

by Lee Middleman

Matsumiya Ryoji, a master potter living in Aomori prefecture, Japan, has devel-oped a unique wood-fire kiln to consis-tently create ceramic pieces with a very

crusty ash surface. He achieves this by burying the work in four successive layers of ash during the firing.

During his more-than-thirty-year career, Matsumiya has built four-teen kilns and fired them more than 750 times. He currently has two noborigamas, an anagama with two additional chambers, an Olsen

crossfire, an archaeological Sueki, and his new bourry box hai kaburi (ash covering) kiln.

Matsumiya was seeking a way to achieve work similar to the few pieces created in the rebox of his anagama. In

the firebox, only a small area is effective and the work is subject to damage from stoking. The anagama re-

quires eight days of firing; a long time to carefully avoid damaging the ware. On a visit to fellow pot-ter Kusakabe Masakazu in Miharu, Matsumiya studied Kusakabe’s version of the bourry box kiln in which ash drops from an overhead grate in one chamber onto the side of the floor of a second chamber. A few pieces in or near this area developed the appearance Matsumiya sought. The ware must be small to avoid blocking the holes between the chambers.

Thus he decided to design a single-cham-ber kiln in which low side stokeholes are used to heat and maintain temperature while three high stokeholes located in the front are used to place wood on grates over most of the pieces. Because the work gets covered in the embers from above, top stok-ing alone is insufficient to ensure watertight vessels and to maintain the temperature to

melt the ash. So, after the kiln is brought to a temperature of 2282°F (1250°C) by side stok-

ing, long pieces of wood are front stoked (he continues to side stoke to maintain temperature).

The embers created from the front stoking above fall onto the work.Matsumiya has found that using four bundles of

wood creates the best results. A bundle is about 4 feet (1.2 m) in diameter and 6 feet (1.8 m) long, made up of

Sake bottle, 15 cm (6 in.) in height, thrown stoneware (a blend of local Kanayama clay and Shigaraki clay), unglazed, wood fired, by Matsumiya Ryoji.


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The kiln door in the center front of the kiln is bricked up for firing. A square in the middle of the kiln door be-comes a top stokehole later in the firing (see diagram below). The before-and-after pictures above show the ware stacked under removable brick hobs (left) and the bed of coals (right), produced by top stoking, which covers the ware later in the firing.

top stokeholes

side stokehole(one on each side)

concrete wall for added support

draft holes for top stoking

draft holes for side stoking

angle iron arch supports


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As the firing nears completion, Matsumiya adjusts the draft hole in the front of the Hai Kaburi kiln before continuing to side stoke.

Top View

The central row of brick hobs are removable to allow for stacking ware below the grate.

Side View

The ware stacking area is directly be-neath brick grates, and becomes buried in coals as the firing progresses.

The top firebox runs the entire length of the ware chamber.


¾-inch square (2×2 cm) wood scrap. As each bundle is add-ed gradually, the ash coals completely cover the ware. Then they are allowed to burn down before the next bundle is added. This ash-covering process takes about 24 hours. Top and side stoking are complete when Matsumiya is satisfied with the coverage of final ash. The graph below illustrates a typical firing schedule. As a result, the ware develops melted glaze at the upper surfaces, different colors (gray, brown, black and some blushes), and a crusty finish below. He pre-fers ash glaze melted on the top third to half of the ware, leaving a rough, crusty and eroded appearance on the re-maining lower portion. Constructed of hardbrick, the kiln takes four days to cool. The larger ware is soaked in hot water when unloaded to prevent cracking. Surfaces of some ware, such as sake bottles, are lightly sanded with fine sand-paper to make them easier to use.

Matsumiya now bisque fires most pieces to minimize breakage. The interior dimensions reflect practical consider-ations. The lumber company scrap is just less than 6½ feet (2 m) long and six hardbricks are 4½ feet (1.4 m) wide, al-lowing for mortar.

The kiln produces consistent results, but Matsumiya will continue to adjust the firing process to improve the look he prefers.

For more information on Kusakabe Masakazu’s bourry box kiln, see Japanese Wood-fired Ceramics, by Kusakabe and Marc Lancet (kp books, 2005).

the author Lee Middleman is a full-time ceramics artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He participates in wood firing in Ja-pan, Korea and China. His website is www.leemiddleman.com.

Vase, 30 cm (12 in.) in height, thrown stoneware (a blend of local Kanayama clay and Shigaraki clay), unglazed, wood fired on its side with ash drips, by Matsumiya Ryoji, Aomori, Japan.

Firing Schedule

The kiln is fired with oil for the first 24 hours in order to get the temperature up to about 450°C (850°F), after which the kiln is side stoked for the remainder of the firing. Once the temperature reaches 1250°C (2282°F ), top stoking begins in order to bury the ware in embers from above.


For more than thirty years now, I have been build-ing, firing and maintaining various large wood kilns. Almost all of them have been a design taken directly from the chamber kilns used historically

around the world. My present kiln is fired seven times a year for my personal work and also for group work-shops. The kiln is a 300-cubic-foot cross-draft, with three chambers in the traditional noborigama style. Two of the chambers are used for glaze work and one is used for salt glazing.

I started using this kiln nine years ago for teaching group workshop firings. I schedule three a year, which is all I can manage given the labor and time involved. Each year, the groups enjoy the experience and the work that comes from it, but many ask for additional space in my kiln at other times during the year, which is not possible given my production schedule.

With new ideas in mind, I set out to build a very versatile and efficient wood-firing kiln that could be used by students who had interest in a complete hands-on experience, from the preparation, loading, firing and unloading to the final clean-up phase. I didn’t want to interfere with the successful larger firings, in which students can get a large volume of wood-fired pots without the in-depth hands-on experience. The new kiln would allow me to cut down on the extensive labor, fuel and overhead costs of my larger kiln.

I named the new kiln “Manabigama” at the suggestion of my friend Phil Berneburg, former technical editor for CM. In Japanese, mana means educational or learning, bi means a thing of beauty, and gama means kiln. The Manabigama is a traditional design with a few simple modifications. I see it as a cross between an anagama and a groundhog-style kiln. Basi-cally, it is a cross-draft tube built into the side of a hill.

The overall interior dimensions are 24 inches in width, 7 feet in depth, 40 inches in height. Its firebox is in the front, incorporated into the inside with a grate system, and extra air intakes are built into the front and sides. This is done to pro-vide more secondary air intake to help burn green or wet fuel. The firebox is plenty adequate being 2 feet wide, 2 feet deep and 30 inches high from the floor to ware level. The chimney has inside dimensions of 9 inches deep by 18 inches wide and is 12 feet high. The shape is a long rectangle with two straight, 18-inch-tall side walls and a catenary arch built on top. This creates ample headroom for ease of loading, as well as extra height for stacking and tall pieces.

There is approximately 24 cubic feet of ware space, more than enough for teaching purposes. The kiln door is in front, only halfway down, and is bricked up including the stoke

hole. It can be loaded in two to three hours, fires evenly to Cone 10–12 in eight hours tops, or if you choose, you can fire two to three days depending on how much ash buildup you like. The consumption of fuel is also minimal—less than half a cord of wood.

All in all, the Manabigama is a very simple design to build. It is capable of yielding wonderful ash-glazed pieces with a minimum of labor, fuel and overhead costs. And it is a fantas-tic wood-fired kiln for teaching without the tremendous strain of a large three-chambered kiln.

Thanks to Phil Berneburg, who was instrumental in inspiring me to build this kiln. For further information on Monocacy Pottery, see www.monocacypottery.com.

John Thies stokes the 24-cubic-foot Manabigama.

Side view of the Manabigama during the cooling phase.

The Manabigamaby John Thies


I had attended kiln workshops for several years, and felt I was ready for more. I was looking for a wood kiln that I could try to fire by myself when John called and said,

“Come see my new kiln. I think you’re going to like it.” Of course I volunteered to test fire it.

I had help and John was always nearby, but for the first time I was able to manage the entire process, which was my goal for this firing. The kiln’s design is just right for a student at my level. All of its processes are small, straightfor-ward and flexible. I love that there is no barrier between the firebox and the pots, so the pots receive as much effect from the fire as possible. This is my goal aesthetically too.

I am already busy designing pots for my next kiln load. I plan to gain as much understand-ing as I can each time I fire it, and enjoy every minute of it. This kiln is going to carry me to a point in the future when I’m ready to build my own. And when I get there, I’ll probably build something very similar.

Bottle, 5 in. (13 cm) in height, stoneware with natural fly ash glaze, wood fired to Cone 12 in the Manabigama, by Mea Rhee, Silver Spring, Maryland.

The Manabigama kiln was con-structed with one layer of firebrick, a 2-inch coating of mud and straw, and steel buttressing, which is an optional feature.

Top View of Kiln

Side View of Kiln

Ware Chamber

60”

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Chimney

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9”

Flue

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Removable steel grate bars

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Ash Pit

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24”

Fire Box

8”

25”

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Stoke Hole

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40”

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67”

Air Intake

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12’

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444 4

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9”

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60”

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24”

Chimney

Flue Exits4½”w × 9“h

Ware Chamber

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Firebox24”

Three removable steel grate bars

1½–2” in diameter

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4½”4

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Air Intakes

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Thoughts from a Manabigama Guinea Pig

by Mea Rhee


by Nesrin DuringWood-fired Raku Kiln

This simple, self-built raku kiln is made of stacked bricks and sized to fit what I’m planning to fire. Sometimes I start firing small objects, then add another one or two rows of bricks for the big-

ger objects. These kilns are built wherever I want them to stand, taking into consideration the direction of the wind. The day after I’ve finished firing, I put away the bricks, out of sight under a roof or in a shed to keep them dry until the next firing.

Kiln ConstructionA typical kiln is built from about 50 insulating bricks (IFBs), a square kiln shelf (size depending on what I want to fire), a metal grill for a grate, a piece of sheet metal, and some broken shelf pieces. It takes about 45 minutes to build, and fires to about 1650°F in about 45 to 60 minutes for the first firing; thereafter, every load takes 15 to 20 minutes (one can see the glaze melting, the pots shining in the flames, from the top of the kiln).

To begin, I level the surface with a layer of dirt; it will also protect what is beneath (concrete, for example, can crack with the heat). I look at the direction of the wind

Handbuilt vessel, approximately 6 inches in height, with iron-spotted raku glaze, reduced in sawdust, by Nesrin During.

Wood isn’t just for high firing. You can build a simple raku kiln

and fire your work with wood to get stunning results.

Wood-fired raku vessel, approximately 6 inches in height, handbuilt, with poured glazes.

and accordingly build the firemouth to receive the wind.Depending on the size of the kiln shelf (it’s going to

diagonally span the walls), I lay two courses of bricks to establish the back and side walls. Upon these the grate is placed so that the ashes can fall through (figure 1). (My iron grate was salvaged from a dump; one could also use a kitchen oven grate, which would last a few firings). Then another two rows of bricks are laid, and the kiln shelf placed diagonally so that the walls support three corners. A piece of sheet iron (also salvaged from the dump, but you can also use a piece of angle-iron) across the front of the kiln supports the fourth corner (figure 2).

Because some of the bricks in the following course will stand on the kiln shelf, I have to raise the others to the same height with pieces of broken shelves. After this leveling course, a couple of rows are laid in a diminishing circular pattern (figure 3). I also partially close the top of the kiln with broken shelves, leaving a central hole to function as a chimney.

FiringI fire this kiln (alone or with the help of students) with scrap wood. The wood should be dry and thinly split.


Two courses of bricks are laid to estab-lish the back and side walls, then an iron grate positioned on top.

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After another two courses of brick, a sheet of iron across the firemouth sup-ports the corner of a kiln shelf.

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Some of the bricks in the following course stand on the kiln shelf, so level with pieces of broken kiln shelf.

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The kiln fires to about 1650°F in 45 to 60 minutes, while pieces for the next firing preheat on top.

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I start with some newspaper and thinly split wood (figure 4).

The fire is well fed in the beginning in order to get the bricks to temperature, but after the first load is done, I fire with less wood and rake the fallen ash from underneath the grate to ensure the fire has enough oxy-gen to burn well.

Because the bricks are so loosely stacked, I can create new openings between bricks to manipulate the flames in a certain direction, causing interesting effects on pots.

The pots intended to go into the next firing are placed on top of the kiln to dry. When the glaze on the pots inside the kiln is shiny and molten, I remove a few bricks from one side of the top to facilitate taking the pots out (figure 5); the pots are then placed in a metal bin contain-ing sawdust (figure 6).

The glaze is a simple: alkali-borate frit (70%) with kaolin (30%). With additions of 0.5% to 3% iron oxide, this gives very beautiful pinks and grays (pink to pome-

granate red in oxidation, and gray to black in reduction). Additions of 2% to 3% copper carbonate yield apple green in oxidation and bordeaux red in reduction. Other oxide combinations, such as iron and copper, or iron and manganese, are also good.

The amount of crackle depends on the type of clay used and the handling. After taking the piece out of the kiln, if you keep it in the air for a minute or so before putting it in the reduction container, you’re bound to get more crazing, especially on a smooth surface. If the surface is rough, you’re more likely to get iron oxide “bleeding,” producing thousands of little dots and giving the piece a rocklike appearance.

Building such a kiln requires few materials, and fuel for firing is equally economical. Because it is a wood firing, there is bound to be some oxidation and some reduction at the same time. The resulting variation in surfaces gives beauty and individuality to the work. Not every piece comes out well, but some are really wonderful.

When the glaze on the pots inside is molten, remove a few bricks from one side of the chamber to facilitate removal of the pots for post-fire reduction.

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