Monday, December 29, 2008

what comes down must go up.

I poured the slab for the new kiln before we left for christmas. I started tearing down the kiln today, its coming apart a lot easier than I thought and with a lot more reusable bricks than I thought.



I think this bagwall is quite pretty; obviously not reusable though.

New slab. I snapped some chalklines for the layout of the kiln, Lucy is sitting right inside the firebox.
I had a nasty toothache before xmas that turned into an abscessed infection during the holiday and was very very painful. Repeated calls to my dentist were never returned, despite their claim of emergency service. I went to the oral surgeon this morning and he is going to remove the tooth next tuesday but until then I'm having to take antibiotics and hydrocodone for the pain which leaves me in a bit of a stupor. I've discovered that I only have about and hour window every 4-5 hours where I can actually work on the kiln. So it'll be a slow haul until next week. It seems this past year that someone or something is always sick or injured so hopefully this coming year will be a year of good health. Happy new year and good health to everyone!
(I'm giving this punctuation thing a try, so I apologize if I miss some now and then!)

7 comments:

ang design said...

hope you're feeling better, so what the story with the kiln destruction and rebuild? it looked so good....nice pots at andrews place in UK too love the yunomi...

Judy Shreve said...

That's terrible about your tooth & having to wait so long -- yikes!

Why are you building a new kiln?

Jerry said...

Hope the tooth is doing better soon. Dental stuff is never fun. Speaking of better soon, how is Kaylee doing?

brandon phillips said...

when i first built this kiln i couldn't afford any more than what i already had salvaged from my old kiln, so this kiln was just to get me by and also an experiment because i had never woodfired on my own before. the results from the kiln and the response to the work have been fantastic, so now i'm 100% committed so a bigger kiln makes sense.

this last year i'd averaged firing once a month, which is too often with a wood kiln, for me anyways. i have many more shows and obligations this coming year so i'm building the same kiln but with double the stacking space. i feel that the smaller kiln is too much effort for the number of pots. there are also a few flaws in the design that could only be rectified with a total rebuild, i posted a blog about it a couple months ago. firing every 1.5-2 months is perfect for me.

jerry- kaylee's doing fine, she has a respiratory infection that was worsened by the accident but she is doing just fine now, thanks for asking!

potterboy said...

Brandon - exciting stuff. Happy new year to you, and here's to a successful and disease free 2009!

Paul Jessop said...

Hi Brandon, I love the look of the bag wall bricks, I heard years ago about them being used as Kerb stones on the streets in Germany when they used to do all that salt glazed ware.
Just a thought.

brandon phillips said...

thanks paul, i'm definitely going to do something with them, i'm just not sure what. it probably will only come out as one big piece.