Naught Hill Pottery

Construction continues

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:25:02 +0000

Sidestoke ports are done and the walls are above my head.

Laying brick

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:11:50 +0000

The last few days have seen the completion of the arch forms for our new anagama. Yesterday evening I completed the door arch and started laying the first of the big blocks on the chamber form. Those suckers are heavy but they do lay up quickly!

On Second Thought…

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:04:41 +0000

Plan B! Upon building the actual ware chamber for our bourry box kiln in the flesh it looked a little small… Trying to envision fitting all the pots we want to make over the coming years it seemed woefully inadequate. The problem with the bourry box design is that so much refractory material is used up front in the firebox. Since we have a limited number of bricks we decided to build a kiln with a larger ware chamber. So we’re starting over and building another type of kiln entirely. It was a learning experience.

A couple of our potter friends have the same type of Thai style anagamas that we are now building. They offer the same efficiency that attracted us to the bourry box and are much prettier to boot. This design allows us to have a kiln volume of about 200 cubic feet as opposed to the 80 cubic foot bourry box kiln. Over all we’re very happy with this decision. So after tearing down the half finished first kiln the second one is well under way, check it out.

Workshop Renovation

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 20:35:18 +0000

Well it doesn’t look like much right now and it smells like a pig but it’s going to be a nice little studio and gallery by the time we’re done. We’ve taken the past few weeks off kiln building to give birth to our first child, Elias Pejouhy Williams. I know, we’re such slackers. But this week I started to attack the barn and got the new floor installed and insulated. I spent the last couple of days milling up yet another giant white pine with my trusty chainsaw mill and made a set of new rafters. The current second floor of the barn hangs very low, just six feet. So I’m going to install the rafters, which are nice hefty 4″ by 12″ beams a little higher up then rip out the existing second floor. I’ll leave one bay open to the roof of the barn so we’ll have nice light from the second story window streaming down to the studio floor along with a second floor balcony gallery area. Should be fun!

Anticipation

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:26:21 +0000

One of the many pots just waiting till the kiln is done. Thrown in Miller B-mix with black and white slip painted decoration.

Rotary Kiln Blocks

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:47:33 +0000

One of the challenges we’re working with while building our new kiln is the fact that most of our dense refractories are rotary kiln blocks. Most potters who have built their own kilns in recent years know that the price of new brick is pretty high these days. That’s one reason why our previous kiln was built from totally salvaged materials. After months of searching for affordable refractories I found a great deal on a couple of end lots of new RKBs. Rotary kiln blocks are used to build huge industrial kilns used for things like making Portland cement or calcining titanium at extreme temperatures, much higher than the average potter needs. These blocks are very dense and very refractory. The small ones, 9″ x 4″ x 6″, are 50 percent alumina. The big ones, 9″ x 9″ x 4″ are 70 percent alumina and weigh in at 24 lbs each. While their size, weight, and wedge shape make them a little difficult to work with there are advantages. For example this kiln will have added versatility. I’ve always been an experimenter, new glazes and fired effects are one of the things that keep me interested in ceramics. Because these blocks are so refractory we could always switch over to salt glazing and not worry about degrading the interior of our kiln too badly. Or maybe we’ll formulate a cone 14 porcelain body and fire to 2500 degrees.

The front wall above the throat arches composed of RKBs. The hottest part of the kiln and the section most susceptible to slagging.

How to build a straight wall out of bricks meant to form a circle.

Brick by Brick

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:22:00 +0000

Finished off the firebox today. Pictured are my implements of mass construction. And there is a token bit of wood waiting on the hobs.Started in on the rear wall and got the exit flues finished.

Here’s a view through the front stoke hole and throat arch and the exit flues beyond.

Bourry Box Throat Arch Construction

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:51:42 +0000

The most complex part of this kiln is the firebox. Two sets of hobs (ledges built into the firebox walls) support the wood a foot or so above the ember piles in the ashpits. The heat radiates up from the embers and ignites the wood. Meanwhile the drafts pulls air down from the top of the firebox. This causes the fire to burn upside down. The fire passes downward and through the two throat arches into the ware chamber. Yesterday I finished the throat arches, take a look.

Kiln Construction Begins

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:43:25 +0000

Well it’s been a while and it’s time to start keeping a public journal again. Much progress has been made over the last several months. The event that provokes the reintroduction of a blog is breaking ground on our new kiln. Much work has been done leading up to this but I’ll talk about that later on a slow kiln building day. For now I’ll talk about our new kiln. It’s an 80 cubic foot sprung arch chamber wood fired bourry box kiln. The top loading firebox design appeals to us for several reasons. We will be harvesting our fuel from our woodlot here in Vermont in a sustainable fashion, replacing the trees we cut with new ones. We will be dealing with two foot cordwood which lends itself to this type of firebox. This type of firebox is extremely efficient. Since we’re cutting our wood ourselves, which is a lot of work, we want to use it efficiently as we can. Also, the idea of spewing more carbon into our already abused atmosphere seems wrong. This type of kiln can fire in reduction but burn cleanly. Wood fired kilns may look cool when there is flame and black smoke shooting out the chimney but I feel this is both wasteful and environmentally harmful. So we’re going with efficiency! The firebox consists of two fireboxes really, side by side sets of hobs over deep ashpits leading into a set of sprung arch throat arches. More about the design later. Her are some photos of the beginning construction.

The concrete block subfloor of the chamber and salvaged ceramic fiber backup insulation under the firebox.

Softbrick firebox subfloor. To the sides are a thousand or so high alumina rotary kiln blocks and hardbrick waiting to become a kiln.

The floor of the firebox going in with under floor air channels for the mouse holes, which help burn down the ember pile.