Gary Navarre on sun 12 dec 04
Hay Crew,
Last night the Koie Cooker was restacked and loaded it up a couple times
before hitting the sack. Two layers of the 3x6x12 Empires were stacked
on edge and the cookie screen put in place. That made a catch chamber
9x9x12. On that were stacked 3 more layers and a piece of kiln shelf. A
bottom brick was nugged open a half inch or so with the snippers and a
fire started. I cheated a little and used a small piece of paper since
it was windy and the resinous Balsam popped the flame out. It was still
damp from the rains we had the last week but the fire soon got
smoldering and I capped it leaving about a 2-3sq." exit hole for smoke
on top, closed the bottom brick and let it sit.
About 8-10 hours later it was still warm and looking inside a little ash
came up from the warm draft. Instead of spritzing water to solidify the
ash it was left to cool till later. About 9:30 PM I light it again and
let it smoke. Around Midnight two more brick were added giving a chamber
9x9x36. I stuffed that with fresh Balsam greens with a negligible bit of
White Pine and some other leafs from the wreath scrap. This was capped
with a couple corbeled layers standard firebrick to close the chimney.
During stuffing the brush is snipped off into the top of the stack with
a snip-a-little and duck the smoke move. Also important is to tighten
the brick by tapping them square.
It started snowing earlier until we have about 3" on the ground around
5PM. I just checked it, stuck a stick in to measure, and it's about half
burned down. Guess I'll stuff it full and call it good till later. There
is enough scrap to keep it going for a while. I started weighing it up
along the way and sort of lost track but I can guesstimate that later.
It's atleast a couple hunderd pounds. Sure is neat to see some kind of
stack smoking out there.
G in Da UP
Navarre Pottery
Norway, Michigan, USA
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/
A young U.P'er came running into the store and said to his buddy,
"Torvo, somebody just stole your pickup truck from the parking lot!"
Torov replyed' "Did you see who it was?" The U.P'er answered, "I couldn't
tell, but I got the license number."
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