Next project

I thought that this awning was going to be harder then it was. I managed pretty well with the help of the one armed man.

Rescued!!!

George Thomas, friend and director of NC State's Crafts Center, came to my rescue and helped finish out the chimney of my kiln. He is my hero.

Set back

Pete was at a catering job trying to get a giant ice cooler out of the back a van and the handle broke sending him shooting out of the back onto the cement. He tried to break his fall with his right hand to avoid hitting his head. Well....he didn't hit his head. He has two fractures and a possible torn ligament. Another xray on Friday will reveal the next step.

Chimney.....again.

We finally got back to rebuilding the chimney and used a plum bob to keep it straight. The next thing will be to put castable over the door arch to stabalize and keep the fiber blanket back from the front of the kiln and our lungs.

Gas tank......

To keep things moving along Pete is working on the burners and we had our gas company move the tank to the next site.

Chimney.....

We counted the brick only to find that we would not have enough to get through the roof.......well just damn! Tim Turner, another potter, came to our rescue with a piece of culvert pipe from his brother. Yeah!

Of course then we got almost finished stacking the brick for the chimney only to find that there was a serious tilt of about 6 inches............well just DAMN again. So I took it down and we will be mortaring it the next time. But it's raining.

Kiln

We were able to get enough from the salvaged brick for a door but it had to be mostly halves which made the door scary. There was no way to lock the two layers together to prevent the brick from falling if it got bumped. So we managed to come up with some money to buy new brick. There is a supplier near Seagrove who has 75 and is locating the 25 to fill the order.

Kiln

It's coming along nicely.

Progress report on the kiln...

I'm not sure why one of the photos didn't make it on the last posting but I'll try again on this one. It's the grinding off of the rust on the angle iron. I had to modify the iron for the new kiln. Pete is making sure that everything is plum.

Progress report on the kiln...

Here are several pictures of the progress of the kiln. The salvaged brick cleaned up nicely. I cleaned the rust off the angle iron from the previous kiln and repainted it.

To the rescue....

A fellow potter, Donna Kanick, from whom we got the plans for our kiln came to our rescue. She had salvaged old brick from NC State's Crafts Center when they closed for renovations a couple of years ago and said we could have all that we needed. The brick have been stored under a tarp at the back of her property since then. Other then the fact that they are wet and some have a coat of moss I think we have enough to finish out the back wall behind the arch and a door. I'm running the brick though my bisque kiln to clean them up and dry them out.

Running out of brick.......

We were running out of soft brick and decided to dismantle the base of the raku kiln to try to finish the project. But alas it was not enough. What now......no more brick and no more money. Damn!!

Kiln........progress in photos.

Back to the kiln....

The gallery is finished and the weather is milder so I am now back to building my kiln. I laid out the foot print before putting the cinder block base in place. And it's level....yeah!

Brick steps....

We had thought to cover the brick steps with ceramic tiles but because of the irregularity of the surface made that task daunting. So I opted for grinding the gray floor paint of instead.

Gallery......

We are nearly through with the gallery renovations. It's looking great!