Before firing this time, I decided to get some expert advice from Ann Lee.  Ann has been doing pottery for over 30 years and is a wealth of knowledge!  Her kind ways and gentle nature have made her an institution of sorts in the Tweed and Murwillumbah, Australia pottery scene.  She is highly involved in both the Murwillumbah Potters Group that works at Fernvale and the Tweed Unlimited Arts at Banora Point, NSW, Australia.

Ann gave me great advice on how to read the gauges, how to adjust the gas flow into the kiln, and when to open the bungs to check for reduction.  I thought that I had listened well!  But…after firing and showing the pictures to Ann, she told me that I wasn’t supposed to LEAVE the bung open the WHOLE time!  I was just supposed to open it and check on it!  Cripes! I left it open the whole time! It’s a wonder anything good happened!  But, it did!  Hooray!

My besties, Liz (my daughter) and Ronnie (my husband), were not there this time! I fired the kiln completely on my own.
A few little wallabies stood by in anticipation – me too!
I stacked the kiln with more levels, heights of shelves, and packed it as full as possible.  Again, I used lots of cone packs.
I put the kiln into reduction at 850 degrees Celsius.
I opened the lower bung to check to make sure that I had a 3 to 4 inch flame coming out of the front of the kiln.  I did!  So I was in reduction!  I did not understand that I was to put the bung  back in – I left it out the whole time and the firing went fast.  I shut down the kiln and closed it up at 7 1/2 hours when the pyrometer showed 1280 degrees celsius and the cones had bent.  I had no way to observe the cones on the lowest shelf.
So…as you can see, the top cones bent, but the two lower shelves cones did not bend fully.




Here are some of the results from this firing. 
Messy, but some interesting results of overlapping.  Shino, royal blue and “other”.
I really like this one!  Greg Daly Opaque Green on the bottom and Greg Daly transparent green on the inside and top, with a wrap of copper red.
Peter’s Tenmoku with Emmanuel Cooper’s Chun on the rim.
Sprayed transparent blue.
I got some reds!!!
This platter was sprayed with floating blue and copper red.  The copper red reduced on half of the piece.
Another piece that reduced only of half of the bowl.  Royal blue dipped.  Waxed design, then copper red sprayed over the inside.
Copper red sprayed on top of royal blue.  Celadon on base
Bowl dipped in opaque green, then waxed inside and sprayed with another glaze! Wish I knew which one!  Damn!