October Kiln News

Starting this thread a little early! There are some improvements starting this month regarding the firing schedule. A calendar has shown up in the kiln area (posted on the big cabinet next to the kilns)! This calendar has expected dates for bisque firings (in green) and glaze firings (in purple). I term this as expected only because at times the unexpected occurs (kilns out of operation, not enough pices to fire a full kiln, etc…) BUT having a calendar posted will keep the firing team accountable for firing what we post we expect to fire. And if there are not enough pieces to fire the big kiln, every effort will be placed on firing the small kiln. This will ensure that we are better serving the Ceramics community and returning your pieces to you as soon as we can. Next to the calendar, you will find more information about each kiln firing: glaze or bisque, the date and time when the firing started, who loaded it, and who it was approved by. This will help the firing team be informed and stay on track of the kiln schedule by having a designated and organized procedure to stay up to date with. We are excited for this change to help improve our space!


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Is there somewhere on talk or online where the updated schedule is being posted?

Hah! I’ve failed to change months, my bad. The Sep. thread has unloading through yesterday’s glaze. My bad.

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bisque unloaded!

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Awesome!

Side note: you can upload more than one image per post. Just hit upload again and choose the next. You can also select multiple images at a time but lately I’ve had hanging issues if uploading more than two at a time so I split it up into multiple rounds in the same post.

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small kiln bisque unloaded!

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Glaze unloaded.

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bisque unloaded yesterday

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Just another request, please fire the large square plate on top of the large glass kiln. It’s up there because it will take up to much shelf space, and need to be on a flat surface. It also, needs to be fired on a flat surface or it will lose it shape. The longer it sits the more gravity is going to pull down the unsupported ends.

Thank you,
Anita Willis

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glaze unloaded

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bisque unloaded

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Do you have any idea when my things will be fired? They have been on the glaze shelf for more than a month. I usually plan far ahead of time but my things have never taken anywhere near this long. Is this going to be the new normal going forward? Let me know if you can so I can plan accordingly. Thanks!

Hey Julie, thanks for the heads up on unfired items! Sometimes pieces just get plain overlooked on busy shelves or there is an issue that folks are trying to figure out. We can certainly work towards better communication about these though. Are your items for the bead rack? I recently did a glaze firing that (I thought) got us down to all glazed items done except rack items and sent a note about them to Madison.

For the pendants, no long drip tray/cookie has been provided for firing them by any of the makers. Firing folks can make one up, but it hasn’t been done yet. This is probably something we need to formalize/document. ‘If there is currently no full length cookie available, then the potter needs to provide.’ That would be my suggestion, others may have a different opinion! I, personally, don’t want to fire the racks without a full, solid tray, items almost always drip. Also, the current pendants on the racks are packed way too densely and close, the wire will bend and the pieces stick. We probably need more education on how to use the bead racks all around.

If yours are the two large pieces on the plate, I am worried that our bead racks won’t support them in firing. I could be wrong, but it is a lot of weight plus glaze movement per single, non weight distributed spot. I didn’t leave a note on them, I didn’t want to make the final call on it, but I passed along my concern. My personal suggestion here would be to make a firing cylinder and wire them up.

I’ve been talking about (important note, not actually making) a quarter sheet form for ‘Will Not Fire’ pieces, to streamline notifying makers about issues that are preventing pieces from being fired. Folks have been mostly putting short notes on items, but a form with ticky boxes and common issues will make it easier and easier means it gets done more often! I’ll make it up today, I’ve been needing that little push to move it up my priority list.

@madisonworthington, @brendamvilla

I was there yesterday and didn’t see a note. I don’t think that it will be too heavy for the bead rack -that I purchased by the way and I have new rods for it - but if you weren’t going to fire it couldn’t you leave a note so that it didn’t sit there for a month waiting to be fired? If it’s just not going to be fired, I guess I’ll pick it up as quickly as I can make it back up there - I could have picked it up yesterday or even weeks ago and it wouldn’t have been sitting up there for a month wasting everyone’s time if there had been a note.

BTW, thank you guys for making this thread a thing each month. Its nice to be able to see a piece move through the pipeline and know when its done to go pick up. And thank you for all the extra work you all do in loading/unloading the kilns, its a lot of work and it is much appreciated!

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Julie, thanks for the loan of the rack so more pendants could be fired. Taking it home home to get your items fired would be a loss for DMS, There seems to be a steady flow of pendants to fire.

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Edit: Okay, honestly, this is a really long response, I’m sorry about that! I’m just super wordy, :). It is no reflection of fussiness or whatever, I just fail on the brevity and conciseness front.

I understand your frustration, I have been there before myself waiting on my pieces to be fired. It can be maddening. I can’t speak for every glaze firing that has happened over the month, but on the one that I did recently, I tried to get every last item on the shelf tetris-ed in there. I looked at the bead rack and saw that it was both overloaded and that there was no provided cookie to fire it on. I skipped it and sent a note to Madison that we need to make up some firing trays as people weren’t making them themselves and try to get the racks worked through as we have a backlog. So the process has started on fixing this problem, we just aren’t through it yet.

As for the plated items, I looked at them, formed a personal opinion (as you have to do when loading a kiln with other people’s work that you really don’t want to screw up for them), and pushed my thought up the chain. It’s totally cool if someone disagrees. Didn’t check them earlier as there were other items currently ahead of them on the rack (overloaded, no cookie, etc.) There have been several bead rack rod failures lately (likely 50% weight related, 50% age related). I didn’t leave a note last week because I didn’t want to be the final call on them, I wanted it to be considered by more than one person.

In general, please, please don’t wait a month to ask questions! We are all volunteers working extra time to help others make their things. If more than a couple of firings have gone by (and we are currently doing many firings a week to try and keep up with holiday demand) and your piece hasn’t made it through, send up a flag. If your item requires something additional for firing, you can speed up the process by making it yourself instead of waiting for someone else to make it for you. This is what is likely the real culprit here in delayed firing, we need a new firing cookie for the rack. If the folks with rack items want to make up some cookies, that would help speed the process. Ideally, they need to be one piece, longer than the rack to keep maximum height for the rods plus prevent run off, and preferably rectangular to maximize adjacent space. A layer of kiln wash on top is excellent. It takes hardly any time, but again, part of the community process, we all contribute a little effort. Julie provides an awesome bead rack (thanks!), someone else makes a few trays (groovy!), a team loads/fires/unloads (sweet!), and it all gets done…just, eventually.

Help us help you, I promise that we want to fire your things at least 90% as much as you want us to fire them. Seriously, I vowed a blood oath to get the slipcast paper sack in the kiln after being a half inch short on the top shelf the previous firing.

I definitely don’t want to inconvenience anyone else who is waiting for their pendants to be fired - I decided to just get another bead rack and fire it myself at home. :slight_smile: I just need to find time to go to DMS and grab my things.