After yet another road trip to far north Queensland escaping Tassies winter we fired our wood kiln for the third time. Each time we fire it we learn a little more. The plan had been to fire for 24 hours and we had a motley crew lined up of old potters and a young "woofer" with no pottery experience. (Boy was he in for a treat!). However after 21 hours a dull thud was heard from inside the kiln and shortly afterwards we pulled a pot out of the firebox! Our wood firing was morphing into Raku. Shortly after this we terminated the firing and waited 3 days with trepidation before opening. One of the stacks of shelves had collapsed. However as you can see all was not lost and some great pieces (no pun intended) came out of that firing. Lesson learned - use stronger props on the shelves next time.
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