Cleaning kilns!

  I spent two interesting days at Jim Malone's pottery in North Cumbria cleaning his two chamber kiln in preparation for firing. You can find out more at Jim's site at http://www.jimmalonepottery.co.uk/kiln.htm.

Info taken from Site:

My kiln is an Oriental climbing kiln of two
chambers, This is the fourth I have built,
each kiln I have constructed has been
modified according to my experiences with
the preceding kilns, hopefully retaining the
virtues of the earlier one's whilst eliminating
some of the faults.
My latest kiln is fired using a combination
of oil and wood. The first chamber (around
50 cubic foot) is fired with two oil burners up
to 1000° C at which point I may finish off with
wood or oil (depends on the glazes) on
reaching cone 11 in chamber 1, chamber 2
is around 1000° C from the exhaust heat alone.
Chamber 2 is finished off with wood only.

Jim's Gallery

The yard

Barn at Jim's housing the kiln

Oriental climbing two chamber kiln

Kiln shelves in chamber

Close up of wall

Pointing first chamber 

The first step was to remove, clean and stack the kiln furniture and the next was to clean the loose mortar from the walls. I then had to fill all the deficits and repoint the walls. It was fun - and very hot!!

Pots outside the kiln

Chimney of kiln

The weather was fabulous - outside the kilns - but the bonus was coffee, tea and lunch times with Jim and his partner Janice in their lovely garden.

How lovely - a lot of hard work but it is a beautiful! 

I also got to look at Jim's studio and his latest work that he is preparing for Goldmark - 200 exhibition standard pots!

Wheel for turning

Jim's wheel 

Glazed and patterned bowls ready to fire

BIG vases

Beautiful bottles!

I hope to be able to get to Jim's for the firing and will - of course - blog!