Kiln Problems

Somebody once said that "farmin' is about 10% hard work, and 90% fixin' something what has got busted".

Running a pottery studio is pretty much like farming in that respect.

I've been struggling with my large kiln since the beginning of December. You can guess how good that timing was... several orders I had promised for then were late, and several in fact never did get done. Great marketing move... not.

At first I thought it had be one of the elements. I had replaced them the month before, after which I had three or four successful firings, but you never know. A careful visual check did not reveal any obvious bads.  Nothing broken, no coils hanging out into kiln space. No error message. Just the firing temperature, as reported on the little controller screen, bouncing around, up and down, and not seeming likely to ever reach cone 6.

Opened up the controller box. Peered closely at every connection. Nothing to see. So I replaced all the thermocouples.

Closed it back up, flipped the circuit breaker back on, started 'er up again. The little electronic message screen said 190F....191F....192F...187F...185F...

Opened it up again. Hey, one of the element connectors looked black and gnarly. I figured that had to be the problem and felt encouraged. I knew what it was! I cleaned up the connector and tried to re-attach it but the 'tail' of the element had burned through and was now too short. There is no way of lengthening that. I tried, but of course the element promptly broke at the other end of the 'tail'.  Luckily, I had kept one of the elements I had removed earlier because it hadn't broken, so I re-installed that. I was so happy to have found the problem...

220F...221F...223F....224F...191F...190F...187F...

So I replaced the relays. I had noticed one of them was making an odd sound, not going 'click, clack' like I was used to, more like 'click, scritch'. No telling which one so I replaced them all.

Nope.

Now I was getting frustrated, discouraged, depressed, not at all happy. Keep in mind that every trial meant waiting for the kiln to heat (or not), waiting for it to cool, then busting knuckles on anything I tried to do. Working on kilns is not done on a work bench at working height, no, you do it with your head down by your ankles, trying to look up into a maze of wires. In the semi-dark inside the cover box, wearing bifocals. Another great quote came to mind while I applied bandaids: 'working on one of these kilns is like working on a pre-war diesel engine'. I've never worked on a diesel and I hope I never have to, but I can imagine.

So yesterday I opened the box up again and carefully went over everything from the top down to the bottom. This time I carefully tugged on every wire, tapped every connector... and lo and behold, one of the wires on one of the thermocouple attachments was loose. Completely dis-connected. A tiny tiny wire!

Got it around it's little post and tightened up, and guess what - kiln fired properly for the first time in over a month! An empty kiln with basically new elements should fire like a rocket, and it did! Temp climbed over 400F in the first hour. I set it to fire to cone 08 and it did, no problems.

Whew.

Why no error message, I wonder?

Drum Roll, Please!

It is with great excitement and enthusiasm and various other expressions of astonishment, that we announce that the (drum roll, please) Official 2016 SmartAss Calendar is (finally) ready!

SmartAss having reached the age of Wisdom and Maturity (3 years), she has taken the theme of Suggestions For Right-Living and leaves the reader much Wisdom on which to meditate during the coming months.

This Annual Calendar, besides enjoying many Capital Letters, is a unique, hand-made, original, limited edition Art Work only available to a select few, that is, anybody who cares to drop me a comment and pretend that they would like one.

SmartAss sends Happy 2016 Greetings to you all!

ps. anybody who wants one will have to send me their mailing address...

'Tis the Season...

To all of Pine Ridge Studio's friends, customers and neighbours, I would like to say:

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!  Talk soon!

Stars

Well now, how's that for an ambiguous title? But I can't think of a better one... maybe after you read this you will have think of something better and if you do, please let me know!

Some weeks it doesn't seem like I get much done. Things started, things worked on, but things 'done' done, no. About the only achievement this week (and that was started last week) was to get the wooden house shapes I wanted to hang pottery stars on painted and 'done'.

It's hard to see in this small picture, but I tried to give the idea of house lights seen through the snow... next time I'm painting more snow but this is it for now. I like the middle one with the fence. Not too sure why there is a fence beside a door, but it sort of works for me. The whole idea of a gateway, an entry, maybe into an unknown space...

Now if I could just think of a better title for this post...

Making Teapots

Finally got back to making some teapots. It's been a summer of mugs, mugs, mugs and more mugs. Much as I like making mugs, I also want to make teapots sometimes! Something to put in all those mugs!

Teapots are a major pottery challenge. They have to look good, fit with the other pieces in your design, work well... and not cost too much. There are plenty of really amazing teapots out there, but I don't think the really sculptural or 'art' teapots we see are meant to be used to make tea. Mine are. I want my teapots to be used, daily, comfortably, and dependably.

Here are a few in the clay I use for my Red Fox pattern, waiting to go into the kiln for the bisque firing:

It was fun making them. I also made a lot of other pieces in that design, including some sugar bowls with lids, none of which fit. Not quite as much fun!

Here is a finished teapot:

Lots of Christmas stuff going on as well. Painting pine cones... cutting out stars...  searching the entire Studio for the red ribbon I was sure I had...

Speaking of red ribbon, have you noticed that, for us creative types, invention is often the mother of necessity? You invent the pottery Christmas mitt, and now you need red ribbon...

Never mind. Time for a well-deserved cup of tea.

It Begins!

The Christmas plotting, that is!

Christmas is my absolute, total, no question about it, favourite holiday. I love making Christmas ornaments and pottery with a Christmas-y feel and plotting various Christmas enjoyments!

One of my enjoyments is designing my booth at the annual Carp Farmers' Market Christmas Market.

I'm planning a Woodland Christmas theme for this year - lots of natural things like pine and spruce garlands, bowls of pine cones and leaves, even birchbark curls. I already have a lovely big grapevine wreath, with lots of wild vine-y bits to it for the blank wall in the booth. All it needs is a bit of greenery, maybe pine, and a floppy red bow and it will look most fine. Then some strings of tiny red felt hearts... or should they be stars, or bunnies... red pillows on the chairs... now how can I add some trees...

 How I got the grapevine wreath is sort of interesting. The beavers cut down a small tree along the driveway, which I was sorry to see, but beavers will be beavers and I am determined to try to see them as nature's pruning service. Then they couldn't drag it away because it was all tied up by a huge multi-stemmed wild grape vine. The next day I saw that they had very cleverly cut the tree into quite small pieces, and the day after that they dragged most of them into the marsh near their lodge. This left a lot of grapevine sprawled across the driveway. I started rolling it up and realized it would make great wreaths and sure enough, I now have 5 nice wreaths and one large rather wild-looking one. I'm not worried about the vine, it will re-grow, probably bigger and better and it can climb up a nearby pine.

 I've made a list of Christmas stuff to make... too ambitious, of course, but exciting anyway. One of the first things is to make a lot of terracotta mitts which are always popular. Luckily, my (former) Super Helper is coming on Saturdays in November to help and between us we should be able to get a lot done. Mitts will be the first thing. You've seen them here before but just for fun here is one again.

I'm also participating in the West Carleton Arts Society's new "$100 & Under" sale which will be the same weekend as the Christmas Market, so I am plotting ideas for that as well.

For some reason, my plotting seems to involve a Fox - a red Fox, running along... I guess a Woodland needs a Fox, right?

Sunnies and Leaves

Here are some of the finished Sunflower design pieces:

You remember, last time I was bitching about how long it takes me to paint my pots. I guess it's worth it, at least I hope it is!

Now I'm working on my Leaves design. It is a bit easier because I use stencils for many of the leaves, but it is oddly difficult to keep the designs random. There is a real tendency to start to arrange things in patterns... or to do things all the same. So I have to force them to be different, and then sometimes I get into design trouble! Never mind, the finished pieces are nice:

One thing that doesn't please me much is hearing people say they are buying them because of the red maple leaves, so Canadian, blah de blah. Grrrr. Makes me feel I'm caving in to touristy selling. Maybe I am. Except that I do like leaves.

Hopefully the pieces in the kiln will all be good, so I can take them to the Carp Market tomorrow. The woods all around us are gorgeous right now, bright with yellow, orange and red leaves, so my booth will fit right in! And please don't tell me you are buying my mug because of the red maple leaf, I might snarl!