Rafael Molina on thu 26 aug 99
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Clayarters:
At my new job with Eastfield College of the Dallas County Community College
District I fired our new Bailey 38/24 kiln last Friday. What a great
experience.
The first thing you notice is the ease of loading. When the car rolls out =
there
is easy access to the ware chamber for stacking. The kiln uses I believe =
four
14=22 x 16=22 x 3/4=22 shelves per level. The smaller and lighter shelves =
ease the
burden on the back ( I'm used to 12=22x24=22x1=22 shelves for a front =
loading Alpine.
I wonder where the fulcrum is along my spine and how it is damaged from the
stress). After loading, the car easily rolls forward and is held in place =
with
four bolts.
For my first firing I preheated overnight with only the pilot burners. When=
I
arrived the next morning the kiln was around 550 F. Using the instructions =
in
the Bailey manual I turned the burners on and then the blowers. The kiln
climbed steadily and I reduced at cone 010 for an hour. After reduction, I
adjusted the air and the gas for a steady climb to cone 10 2381 F.
What impressed me the most was how even the heat was distributed in the =
chamber.
I used a thermocouple in the front top spyhole and the front bottom spyhole =
in
addition to the kilns thermocouple which is situated in one corner of the =
back
of the chamber at the top. As with all kilns I've experienced the temp =
varied
in the early stage of the firing. After reaching the temp at which I =
reduced
the temp was very even. At the upper end of the firing at any one time the
three probes situated at different parts of the kiln were off by just a =
matter
of single digits.
After three days I unloaded the kiln. The body reduction of the clays =
varied
throughout the chamber. Some were warm and toasty others were yellow and =
bland.
The color development of the glazes was quite nice. I placed some tiles of
glazes that are particularly sensitive to reduction throughout the chamber =
(as a
sort of =22Canary in a Coal Mine.=22 Pardon my Police reference =3B-D). =
The celadon
and copper red came out well. The rutile blue=3B however, did not achieve =
the
correct color or texture. I attribute this to the temp and not the =
atmosphere.
That glaze likes to go to =5E 11 2399 F and I only fired to =5E 10 2381.
The kiln is loaded and ready to be fired again. I'm going to fire on =
Saturday.
This will take care of all the Summer II work just in time for the Fall =
semester
which begins on Monday.
Rafael
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