First Bisque of October is out!
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Who do I need to sweet talk into showing me how to make a couple of those tiki mugs? Those things are ridiculously awesome.
Yes, finally found a tiki mold after 3 years of searching, lol
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Next time you make one, can I tag along and make one as well? I’d love to have 1 or 2 of those in the cupboard.
For those of you that came out to finish up Glaze the other night. TBTB have decided to shut down all the kilns for 3 days, “for maintenance.” So if you were planning on coming back to shiny new pieces this weekend, may wana plan otherwise.
Not sure why this wasn’t addressed in the meeting, or prior post? 
Next time can we plan these events? Prolly get a lot more interest in the volunteer work that way as well. And the people that only have a day or two to enjoy the magic of the space can plan better as well. 
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From my experience, the ceramic firing team are some of the most hard working individual here. Like the hundreds of other who work behind the scene to make this space going everyday, their work are often go unnoticed until something goes wrong.
First, we were long overdue “for maintenance.” The fact that many of our members glaze their piece too thick, use heavily flux glazes, and fail to keep glazes off the foot, a large majority of our kiln has fused pieces, or glaze drip on the kiln. It happens. Grinding shelf, taking off kiln wash, putting on a new wash, and curing the shelf is part of running a studio. Finding people and scheduling a time is the hard part. This Sunday, with cooler weather, the team decided to hold off on loading a kiln to grind all the shelves, wash it, and bake it, with the goal to finishing it Monday night.
Second, our kiln philosophy here at the space has always been when their is enough pieces on the shelf, we will load a fire. This allow for an efficient firing and reduce the amount of firing our kiln goes through. This in turn has dictate our firing schedule. However we have always put people’s needs and demand above this. Whether someone needed a pieces fired quickly for a gift, an event, or need to jump the queue for a project they were working on, this need was always convey to the team and we try our best to respect and accommodate them. I’m sorry if this pause in firing ruin any of your plans. No request was convey to the team this time weekend.
If you feel that the 16 loading, firing, and unloading in August and the 14 loading, firing, and unloading in the month of September, was not fast enough, please come and give us an extra hand with the daily firing, we could always use the help with “kiln maintenance” vacuuming kiln, grinding, washing, and organizing the shelf. With your help we can finish “kiln maintenance” in one day.
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When is this happening? Steve and I have time this week to help.
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Already done! I met this morning with Monika and we patch-washed the shelves, they are in the kiln drying now (25 minutes left). Yay efficiency.
The shelves still need to be fully (flap wheel) ground down and kiln washed again some time in the semi-near future which will take longer and be more work. If you like respirators and being dusty (it’s fun, I coughcough promise) let Brenda and/or Monika know and I’m sure they’ll tap you when that time comes.
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Thank you guys for everything that you do!
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Guessing you meant reply all 
I helped load/unload every run except one while the chairs were gone.
Thanks @Monikat for staying and help load a glaze kiln today. She’s sick but stuck around to help get everyone’s glaze pieces through the kiln. 
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it’s all about teamwork!
Out of curiosity, would the Metal Shop vapor hone media blaster work on the shelves? Might be faster, and would certainly be less dusty (since it uses water). Typically does not need a respirator to use.
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Kiln shelves are a bit big. What’s the longest thing the vapor hone will take?