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Woodfiring going well so far! yesterday was loading. Everything went into the kiln nice and smoothly. This will be the 10th firing of the cloud kiln.

I never get tired of the view of the kiln from the kitchen door.

We candled the kiln with propane for a few hours, then switched to a campfire in the lower door. The goal is raising the temp 75 - 100f/ hour until about 1000.

At this point, it’s still cool enough to open a port and just watch the flames and the pots. Only 800f or so.

Hour 16. 1500f in front, 946 in back. Swing shift is going well, with @dunting.bsky.social and Lilith Rocket running the kiln. They’ll do body reduction overnight, starving the kiln of O2 at various points. I’m back on shift in the morning.

Soundtrack of morning at the kiln. The fancy pyrometer is courtesy of @benhollis.net

Today’s shift was a wild ride. We were suppose to hold at 2175/ 2175. Soaking the heat into the bricks and pots. But our scavenged eucalyptus had other ideas. It burned hot and left a giant coal bed. Most of the shift was franticly trying to control the temp.

We’ve since found equilibrium. We’re approaching hour 38, with 2240f in both the back and the front. It’s a waiting game. We want to let more ash accumulate on the pots, but don’t want things to get too hot. We’re doing a lot of side stoking, as demonstrated by Ian.