Wood-Firing 101

MaryAnn Carroll

In my last blog post I shared a little bit about the differences when firing ceramic beads. The most recent and my most special firings are when my husband does the firing for me! Well, I make the beads, glaze and prep, but cannot take credit for the 18 1/2 hours that it took him to fire this last time stoking the kiln every 3 minutes. I also wrote a post on wood-firing in a little more detail a couple of months ago. Click the highlighted links to read a little more if you please. The March post is when the process started for this particular firing.


Near the end of this firing, one of our young friends Connor came over to assist.





Why the name Split Fire Pottery? The chimney is split in two.




And what came from this firing?

Bill is currently listing on Etsy. Check it out by clicking HERE.

Pictured below are some examples of the beads that came out of the kiln after a two day cool down. I lost about 10 due to the wire adhesion, but the ones that did come out I am thrilled with. The pictures are super sized so you can see the full effect of what this process does.

Here they are......

 

We did a little experiment and put some of my mid-fire porcelain in the chamber near the bottom of the chimney. The beads on top are the way they look from that experiment. The beads on the bottom are beads using the same glaze, but they were fired in my electric kiln.

You can see more pictures of this firing and others by going to our Facebook page Split Fire Pottery and Artisan Beads Plus

Thank-you for supporting artists who create handmade with handmade.

MaryAnn