Wood Firing in Canton
September 08

Loading the wood chamber of the naboragama (multi-chambered, hill-climbing, wood-fired) kiln


Sneaking the last little stuff in (and clearly missing a good back massage!)


Day 2 Reduction firing the wood chamber  


This particular naboragama has two chambers, each about forty cubic feet. (You can see them bricked up in the picture).  Both are fired with wood, and the lower one is put into heavy reduction - depriving the fire of oxygen so it sucks the chemical oxygen out of the clay bodies and glazes creating cool effects.  It also tries to suck oxygen out of any hole it can find.


The back side of the kiln.  The bright spots on the bottom are two of four stoke-holes where we feed the fire-breathing beast for twenty four hours.


Day 3 Demos on wood firing throwing techniques


 Day 4 Scraping shelves....


The finished salt chamber
In this second chamber, we fire in oxidation and add about thirty pounds of salt at about 2300 F.  The sodium reacts with the glazes and clay and wood ash and does... awesome things.  


The happy (tired!) workshop...


One million boxes and buttons