Just to help…the kiln team members take pictures of shelves after they load, so the person who loads next are aware of what should go in 
. They have a kiln team thread that they are all seeing as well. There is a lot of Tetris going on too and then when you get tall pieces and flat pieces…there goes a whole bunch of space 
.
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Hey y’all,
Needs attention shelf is needing attention.
It is full.
Reminder to leave the bottom 1/4 inch clear of glaze if you are not providing your own cookie.
Thank you!
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It’s only on top and it’s 1/4 inch.
Also- whoever cleared the shelves and loaded the kilns…YOU ARE AMAZING!!!
My OCD self is in a happy place seeing the organization and cleared shelves. Now if only everyone would pick up their bisqued and glazed pieces so you’d have room to put all the pretty new stuff. 
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Unloaded bisque, training Anna;
I forgot to take pictures at first but remembered after the first two shelves-
Also this last piece was busted up before even picking it up. Make sure your pieces are dry before putting on green ware shelf y’all, thanks! 
I think you may need to re-upload these photos. Thanks for taking care of the kiln last night!
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@jamierazzz sll of the pics need to load to 100% before you send the message. Sometimes you need to break up the number of pics to get them load appropriately. Just FYI…for your reload of the pics to the message
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Re: Piece that broke – it was just too thick. There’s a spot at 900F where the clay goes through … err… a “special” shrinking. Really thick pieces (and this qualifies) can break at this point. A while back, we had a solid sculpture piece just disintegrate from this same issue.
And, @chanelmignon – I’m concerned that your sculpture piece is going to do the same. I mean, we’ll go ahead and fire it. At this point, I’m not sure what you could do to it, as it is completely dry greenware. Altering completely dry greenware can also cause it to break, so we may just see what we’ll see.
@Csmith10987 – wasn’t it you that explained the 900F phenomenon the last time? I know it was one of our educated potters.
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Thank you Beth lol… I’m pretty sure about what your saying but I think @Liamluu or @cmcooper0 can explain it better I think it was one of them that talked about it before if I believe!!
Barring some specific exceptions, firing a thick, solid piece is not a definite kiln explosion. The problem is that it takes an extremely long time to fully dry a thick and solid piece. This is why people tend towards hollow forms or poking holes through trouble areas. The problem occurs as the piece dries and constricts, trapping moisture deep inside. When you fire wet pieces, the water turns to steam and expands in size, exploding or cracking the piece. If it is evenly wet, the whole thing can nearly pulverize. If you have a pocket of dampness, it will find a way out, often breaking where weakest (like internal air pockets, which is why people erroneously think you can’t fire sealed things).
Quartz Inversions and Conversions are tricky and why we are careful about the speed at which the kiln changes temperature and why we don’t throw the lid open at 1000 degrees to speed cool. Crystalline solids increase their molecular mobility when heated even if they don’t fully melt and trigger some pretty big changes. There are two that concern potters more frequently. Crystabolite is the more icky one as it can cause a sudden change to the volume of more than 2% at ~425F (the lattice straightening on the way up and contracting on the way down). Luckily, less common. Quartz is the second and as it is present in all of our clay bodies and glazes, the one that we deal with more. That one happens at a little over 1000F and is more of a 1% expansion. These material changes are handled by moving carefully through these temperature changes to not overstress the pots.
There is a lot more technical version of this explanation and I painted some pretty broad strokes but this is hopefully short enough to not put anyone to sleep. Numbers are ballpark’d 
edit: All that said, in general - firing low and slow is the way to fire a hefty, solid piece successfully and the community firings are geared towards as fast as possible while still being careful. If you really want to fire a solid piece, plan on months of dry time or lots and lots of oven time (under 212F) to try and push it along.
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I’m intrigued! To whom does the chain belong (unloaded 11/13), and how will it used?
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I believe that April made the chain and as far as use I would guess art. It is really cool - cant wait to see how it glazes
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Me too! I love how creative everyone is and I get so inspired by everyone’s work!
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Yes…tis mine…still deciding on what to do with it and how to glaze. Thoughts I have played around with are draping it over a vase…or hanging from a branch and adding rope for a piece of wall art…or a base for a flat round piece of wood to sit on. Currently adding more links and will bisque fire again, and there are several pieces sitting on top of each other, so it is hard to show you what all is there right now. Any other ideas are greatly appreciated!!!
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What if you arrange them and use yarn or macrame rope to hold the links in place … then you can cut loose and rearrange into another form when you get bored. You could glaze them with mason stains or underglaze so the dont all stick together?
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I have single ones just for that purpose! I made them but flattened them out. But i didnt think of mason stains!!! Thanks for that tip…starting some new ones!!!
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Unloaded bisque from 1027
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Unloaded glaze from 1222
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