Gas Kiln Firing

Today we unstacked the gas kiln which I thought was going to be a disaster. The firing was fine even though it was too hot in the bottom and I struggled to get it even while keeping the atmosphere steady. The lower half was about a cone too hot. 

If you look very carefully you can see that there is a test tile which is very near to the left uppermost bowl. Too near as it turns out. I was able to remove it and do some work on the bowl, but it will always have a little mark. 

Somehow I expect my pots to be perfect. I'm not perfect and MY body certainly has 64 years of dings and doinks and I accept (mostly) these. I have a chiropractor and a personal trainer to help with balance, flexibility, and strength because I realize that I need to address these issues of imperfection before they become debilitating. Why can't a pot have a little ding and that be OK?

At cone 012 that same bowl was also holding up the cone but I was able to move the cone with a metal rod. 

There were some refired oilspot bowls in the kiln and this was the nicest of them, at least to my eye. The stoneware bowls are part of a dinnerware set for my friends Dean and Betty. 

I also managed to drop one of the peephole hard bricks on the Oxy Probe and it broke the porcelain tubing but did not otherwise hurt the probe. It will have to be fixed before using it again. This was the result of the leather gloves having a hole in the finger and me using a tea towel to remove the brick, the tea towel catching on fire, and me not being aware enough to figure out what is happening. 

I've been dropping stuff in the past week. Hopefully this is not the beginning of something permanent. I have to learn to be more aware. 

It's time to take the burners apart and make sure everything is working correctly. The fans seemed like they could use some oil. I have 21 year old Dedell forced air burners and they need some attention, especially since this is spring, and mud daubers love to build nests in small orifices.