Salt Kiln Firing

Me loading the Penland Salt kiln

We has enough pots to load the big salt kiln at Penland.  This kiln is really huge but we didn't have any problem finding pots to put in it.  Everyone in the class has been working like crazy, many long hours, little sleep. A little beer and wine fun have been added to the mix too, just to make it worth the effort.
The firing got off to a rough start as we found a small leak in a gas line.  We were able to repair the leak and light up all four (yes, four) burners.  The temperature rise was slow, around 160 to 180 degrees per hour, needless to say we fired late into the next evening.  Because of the volume of pots and Elisa's wishes to show us the differences between salt and soda we loaded up two more kilns while the big salt (Trusty ol' Rusty) was firing we loaded up two other kilns, Lucille and Julia and got them started.  Of course being the workaholics that we are we had too many pots which means another kiln will need to be fired.
These days with little or no sleep make people lose track of what day it is but everyone took a shift and we all had a good time.  The kiln has not been opened yet.  I'm excited to see the results.
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