Firing the Beaver Calcine Kiln

I fired the Beaver Kiln this week! It was pretty exciting just to fire a kiln and play with the fire. I loaded the small chamber with Beaver bones (to use in a glaze), Deer bones (to use in the making of a clay body), and seashells (for use as a whiting in a glaze). I also loaded the kiln with cone packs, just as a temperature test, and the kiln worked beautifully for calcining materials! I dropped cone 08 in the chamber and that was hot enough for the purpose of the kiln.

Speaking of Beavers...

SInce we are talking of Beavers...I have also decided to make a mold of two Beaver Tails (from the same beavers that will be calcined). I was able to work on them in my new studio! It is great having all of my materials together in one large space to work with. The plaster molds are finished and drying and I hope to use them to make clay beaver tails very soon. (The other picture is of the mama and baby goat that I am temporarily sharing my studio with until it warms up...aren't they cute!)

Beaver Kiln

Because of Beavers, I have decided to build a small wood kiln.

This Kiln is for calcining the bodies of some Beavers that my friend Carl had trapped for their fur. My intent is to burn the beavers down and use their bones as bone ash in a glaze. I will also be able to use it to calcine any other materials that I come across and I will also be testing it for temperature to see how hot it can get (to see if I may be able to fire work in it as well...)

The bricks are all dry laid because it is just a temporary calcining kiln.

Some technical details:

The firebox is 4' long x 18" wide and tall

The stacking chamber is 18" wide x 20" Long and Tall

The chimney is 6' Tall x 9" wide

The flame path will be roughly 16' long

I hope to fire it next week and will post the results!

Break from pottery to rebuild bathroom!

This past summer I had to put the kiln development on hold while I focused my energy into the remodeling of my bathroom. Sounds like a small undertaking....but the project consumed pretty much all of my art time from August through November here. But I am finally done!!!
We decided to do as much as possible ourselves and I was able to really use the project to learn alot about building and patience. I had help putting in all new plumbing (water and drain lines) but all the rest was done by us. The part that was the most exciting was the tile work on the floor and going three feet up the walls. I used old roofing slate (from a house on my back acre) that I cut down to a nice size and then grouted and sealed them. It is a perfect use for the old slate... I believe that I could build my own cabin and studio now...

The round piece of slate in the picture was found that way being used as the bottom of an old metal bucket whose bottom had rusted out!

Chimney growing

The chimney now is 11 ft tall. The finished height will be about 14 or 15 feet. I installed a damper about 5 feet up from the bottom of the hole as you can see in the picture. It is nice to be using bricks, rather than just collecting them!

Chimney Beginnings

I tore apart the existing chimney, leaving just a hole in the ground that connects with the back of the kiln. I then reinforced the walls of the chimney down in the ground by setting in a clay chimney pipe that had a hole cut in the side to allow for an opening into the kiln. I set another clay chimney pipe on the first one just to obtain enough height so that it would stick out of the ground. Now at ground level I will continue the chimney out of bricks all the way up to my desired height... I will also build in a damper right above the level of the clay pipes.

Smoke trail-Stemma chamber

SO before I can work any more on the front of the kiln, I wanted to finish off the back. The old kiln is the smoke trail (or hopefully it will act also as a stemma chamber) but I felt that during firing the walls would crumble and fall into the kiln, thereby blocking the chamber and inhibiting draft. So I crawled in and laid down a brick floor, brick reinforcing walls, and a ceiling to keep it from collapsing. Not easy work as I bruised up my elbows, knees, and ribs...