Building My Dream Kiln III
Michelle Lowe of Desert Dragon Pottery describes building her 'Dream Kiln' (Part 3)

The Cart
The cart was a bigger job. I consulted in detail with my friend Rusty Wiltjer on this part, and his suggestion to load the cart with hardbrick on top to hold the softbrick in place while you "sand it down" to fit was brilliant! It worked like a charm, with a layer of hardbrick between the thermal insulation and softbrick to give the softbrick a sturdier base. I had to have Richard, the welder, redo parts on the cart when I realized what I needed finally. I think I bricked the cart a total of three times before it worked smoothly. It took some correcting of the top layer of bricks on the cart, so it would fit as it rolled into the existing kiln properly without catching and pulling bricks off on its way in or out. Once I had it so it fit, I ran the cart in and out several times to smooth and sand the seal. Richard showed up in the midst of all this and finished the door pulls, latches and some other final pieces.

Now I was ready to FIRE, I thought. I realized after I loaded up the first bisque load that I hadn't put the pyrometer in. I used cones and although it fired quite unevenly (06 flat on top barely down on bottom), I was pleased with the speed of firing and how easily I seemed to get a feel for the burner adjustments. I pretty much left the damper alone for the first few firings. I decided to test my cone 6 oxidation glazes to see what they would do in a gas kiln. I got some wonderful results in the first two firings, even though I overfired them to cone 8 on the top with cone 6 at the bottom. Meanwhile, I discussed the kiln with my buddies online and they gave me some ideas for some "tweaking" to do on it. I decided to make a couple changes, eventually, but will be firing it, meanwhile.

I will continue to document this process with photos, and eventually finish up this ongoing page with some beautiful glazed loads!

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