[Clayart] soda and salt

[mel jacobson]

i have a lot of experience with salt and soda kilns.
we have had a couple variations at our farm.
i don;t like it, so never put my pots in those kilns.

we now have a hard brick soda/salt kiln.
donovan and kerry built it..nice arch.
being hard brick it does take about 11 hours to fire.
but, we have no problem reaching cone 11.

kerry brooks has been using soda sprayed in. it is ok,
but never what we really want.  i like salt...and i put a period
on that.  we have fired that kiln a few times using both soda as a
spray and then finishing off with a big bang of rock salt.
much better.

i have such a funny story,...told before, but worth a repeat.
when colleen was in college she was told that salt kiln did not work,
and needed help...so, don't use it.  i scoffed...`they don't know how
to fire it, or what to add!`
so, i told her to load and fire it....she loaded a full load of her 
pots, started the kiln
by herself....we talked on the phone....back and forth.
then, i said, `when you get to cone 9 add 8 pounds of salt.`
`eight, are you kidding...?`  `no`.
then when she reached cone 10 i had her add 8 more pounds.
then a couple more at the end.  the kiln walls and shelves etc took up
most of the salt.

what a perfect salt firing.  they had farted around with like 1.5 pounds.
it does nothing.  ours, runny, full of orange peel, bright orange/brown.
we kicked that salt kiln in the ass, fired hot and loaded it with salt.
everyone thought colleen was a genius. `oh, colleen fixed the salt kiln...`
bullshit, we just fired it.
it will take a number of firings to make that salt kiln work just the
way you want it....fire it, then fire again.
mel

-- 
Mel's Website:  www.melpots.com
CLAYART PAGE:
http://www.melpots.com/CLAYART.HTML

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