Firing the Kiln
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It takes over a week to stack the kiln with ware, through a arched door on the side that gets bricked up to seal the ware chamber. The firing takes 3 days, 24/7, with stoking teams of 2-3 people on 8 hour shifts. It is exhausting, adrenalizing, and magical.
First Firings - 1 -4
BakanaGama , translates to the IDIOt's Kiln
It is only possible to find how a wood fired kiln fires by firing it when complete, so I took a tongue in cheek approach to the name, as I wasn’t sure if my design would work at all. We barely got temperature in the back bottom, but got > cone 12 in the front top. Changes in configuration, like putting bricks in the exit flue to slow the flame helped refine but issues with temperature differential remained.
Firings 4 Through 7
Firings
Further refining process and configuration better results, especially firing 6, where we had cone 11 temps consitently across the front back, top and bottom.
Firing #8 - More participants and a new name
Ganbaregama
After 7 firings, the kiln behaves admirably enough that we feel we can rename it. Ganbare is what they yell as encouragement, it means “Give it your best! So the new name is Ganbaregama.
