The January 2024 Firing of Puff the Desert Dragon Wood Kiln

By this past January I was really ready for a wood firing, Luckily I wasn’t the only one. So the date was set, we planned to load and fire in mid January. We did not get many pictures of the actual loading process, as things went pretty fast and furious once we got started. I made the mistake of thinking I could get some of my glazing done as we were loading (it worked out, but - note to self - this really isn’t a good idea).

Here are the pictures we did manage to take, along with some notes about how it all went.

Loading the Kiln

These first 2 photo’s are really prep shots. In the first pic, you can see one of our wood piles. Logs have been cut down to a manageable size. The second shows me just about to start loading our pots.

The first layer of pieces are loaded right onto the kiln floor. You can see that the floor and walls of the kiln have been covered in a thin layer of kiln wash (which looks like a thin layer of white paint). The kiln wash will help to prevent any pots or kiln furniture from fusing to the floor during the firing. We will also use a malleable material (called wadding) between anything touching the kiln floors or walls or shelves, for the same reason. The wood ash in the atmosphere of the kiln will coat Everything in the kiln in it’s own glassy glaze, so these refractory materials are necessary to keep pieces from fusing together, or fusing to the kiln.

In past firings, it’s been tough to get everything on the floor up to the temperature we want. Last winter, I worked with John Manley to improve the insulation on the kiln. This definitely helped, but we still had some cool spots on the floor in the last firing. This time, we kept the first row of shelves very short, which freed up a bit more space higher up in the kiln. Then we loaded things pretty loose on the floor - we left plenty of room between pots so the air and flames could easily flow around them. This seemed to pay off, I think nearly every pot on the floor turned out quite nice in this firing.

These pics show the final stages of loading. The multi-colored spiked piece are the cone packs. Each spike is a cone, and each is formulated to melt at a different approximate temperature. Cones allow potters to measure not just the temperature of the kiln, but the effect the heat is having on the clay in the kiln.

In the last pic above, we are all loaded up, and ready to brick up the front of the kiln. Our cone packs set up where we can see them, and we’ve built a low, loose wall between the firebox at the front of the kiln, and the pots in the back. This gives the pots some protection from the wood we throw into the firebox. I think it also helps by pushing the heat up to flow around the kiln. Not everyone agrees with me on this, but it’s an opinion based on observations I’ve made on multiple firings done in this kiln - when we don’t build this wall we don’t get to cone 10.

In this firing we did 2 separate stacks of shelves - you can really see this in the last picture above, there’s a separate stack on the left and on the right. In the past, we usually had at least 1 shelf (or half shelf) at the very top, which would straddle across the 2 stacks below it - we left that out this time. But it was missed; the left stack of shelves shifted and leaned, and the back corner landed all the way over onto the kiln wall during the firing (luckily it did not fall far, and there weren’t many casualties).

Bricking Up the Door

We’re building the door pretty fast and furiously in these pictures. We start our door off with 2 layers of brick, so that it’s nice and thick and sturdy at the bottom. Once we get the stoke hole built in, we switch to a single layer. Next time we may try to keep that double brick thickness all the way up.

In the last pic above, Mishy is placing the new stoke hole cover in place. Garry Price built this using a metal rack of some kind, some old electric kiln elements, and a lot of fiber insulation - it worked beautifully! (You’ll get a better view in later pics and videos.)

We were all loaded up with the door bricked up on a Thursday, and we decided to start firing around 10 am the next Saturday. The plan was to fire into and through the night, as long as needed.

Firing the Kiln

In the first couple of this group of pictures, you can see Garry starting the fire at the very bottom of the firebox, through the vents at the very bottom of the door. After a solid hour or so we graduate from smaller sticks and bark fed into the vents, to larger pieces fed in through the stoke hole. These larger logs sit on top of the grate we’ve built in the front of the kiln (the firebox). By the end (a solid 12+ hours after we began) we could see most of our cone 11 cones down, with some cone 12’s bending as well.

This video clip shows me pulling the stoke hole door before a stoke. This is nearing the end of the firing, the temp is likely around 2300°F. You can see here the heat is pretty close to white.

This last pic of the firing was taken just after the final stoke. We let the fire burn down for a bit after that - 10-15 minutes or so. Then we close up all of the holes - the chimney flues are closed, we brick up the vents at the bottom of the door, and we mud up any cracks we see.
We tend to give the kiln 3 days to cool before breaking down the door to see the results. It’s tough to wait, and probably 2 days would be enough, but we want to be certain everything has had plenty of time to cool. Just speaking for myself here, but after a few days of obsessing over a wood firing, I usually need a few days to catch up on all the other things going on in life.

January 2024 Desert Dragon Pottery Wood Firing Crew

Unloading the Kiln

After patiently waiting, we are so ready to tear down the door and see the results!

Once the door was down, we found that we had been blessed by the kiln. Pots at the top were nice and ashy. As we dug down through the middle and to the bottom, it appeared that we reached cone 11 throughout the kiln, with some spots hitting cone 12. Below are quite a few highlights, and shots of many of my pieces from this firing.

We were all happy potters, and we were all thinking about when we can do it again! As it often does, Spring got very busy. John Manley came to visit, and he did a wood firing that a few of us participated in. (I got some bonus wood fired pots!) It was fun to see how he did things different in firing his own work, some of which is quite large - filling the kiln from top to bottom. With the Phoenix weather rapidly warming up, the next firing will not be until the weather cools again next fall. But we will be ready to apply the knowledge we gained in Winter/Spring of 2024.

That wraps up the January 2024 Wood Firing! Here’s a super speed clip of the kiln unload - Enjoy!

One final thing - here’s the short video I’ve just made, and it kinda sums this all up. I’m going to share this on my socials, and save it here because I like it. Happy potting :)

Video compilation of throwing and wood firing a vase.

Spring 2023 Firing of Puff the Desert Dragon Part 2

This is part 2 of my blog post about the spring wood firing. If you missed part one, you can check it out here: Spring 2023 Wood Firing Part 1.

I discussed loading the kiln and bricking up the door in my last post. This post will cover the actual firing, and a bit of the unloading.

Here’s a short video showing the kiln as it’s firing. This was taken right around cone 9/10 - just a bit before the previous picture.

Video shows the firing wood kiln, right around cone 9.

Once the firing was done, more waiting….ugh! It’s so hard to wait to see the results of all this work! I believe we gave the kiln a good 4 days to cool before we unloaded.

First, here’s some group shots of many of my pieces, posed and shot right after we unloaded the kiln. You can see the cone packs in these shots as well, remember the cone in back is cone 12. Beneath those pics, you’ll find a selection of some of my favorite pieces from this firing. I’ll link a few more videos by Anita, Steffi and Mishy at the bottom of this post.

Compilation of photos of Unloading of the 2023 wood firing of Puff the Desert Dragon at the Desert Dragon Pottery Studio.

Video of the Desert Dragon Pottery crew unloading the Spring 2023 wood firing.

That’s a wrap for the Spring firing! We were so happy with the results, and we’re starting to think about a Fall or Winter firing - I have a few pieces squirreled away already!

Many of the photos and videos in this post were taken by Anita and Steffi Howell, Mishy Katz and/or Gary Price.

Spring 2023 Firing of Puff the Desert Dragon Part 1

We fired up the wood kiln (Puff) back in April - it had been well over a year since our previous firing and I was so ready for it! Both the loading and the firing went pretty well, I’m feeling more confident with just about every firing, but of course there is still plenty of room for improvement. The firing was a bit over 15 hours; we reached a solid cone 10 throughout the kiln, and a solid cone 11 in quite a few spots. Note: cones are used to gauge the heat in the kiln (a bit more about that is described below).

I’ll break this up into 2 parts - part 1 will mostly be about the loading, and building the door. I’ll link a few video’s of the actual firing at the end of this post, and I’ll include a bit more about that in the second part.

These pictures show us finishing up the loading, and bricking up the door. We were pretty focused - I didn’t think to get any pictures until we were almost done. But you’ll get a nice overview of the loaded kiln and the door with the first few shots below.

Building the door is tough, in part because it comes right after Loading the kiln, which is also quite a lot of work - so you’re already good and tired! We could not fire this immediately, we planned to wait about a week before we fired. Since the door was bricked up, and the chimney flue was closed, the pots were safe and sound.

Here’s a short video clip of me and Gary feeding the fire. Below that (at the very bottom of this post) is a fun compilation of firing pictures, it’s a great overview of the day.

Short video clip of Jill Spawn and Gary Price stoking Puff the Desert Dragon (the wood kiln) at the Desert Dragon Pottery. Video taken by Michelle (Mishy) Katz.

Compilation of some photos from the firing of our Spring 2023 wood firing at the Desert Dragon Pottery. Created by Anita and Steffi Howell.

I’ll share a bit more about the firing, and the finished pieces, in my next post.

Some of the photos in this post were taken by Anita and Steffi Howell, Mishy Katz and/or Gary Price.

Giving Puff (the Desert Dragon Wood Kiln) a facelift

Puff the Desert Dragon is the name of the wood kiln out at the Desert Dragon Pottery Studio, in North Phoenix. A group of artists, led by John Manley and Tom Bivens, built the kiln in the winter of 2017, based on John's design. (Here is a link to my blog post about the initial build: Building Puff the Desert Dragon Wood Kiln)

We had used big rocks as the outer layer of insulation on the kiln, mostly out of convenience (they were available, and free). But John felt the rocks on the outer layer were not sufficient for insulation. We had completed quite a few successful firings since 2017, but they were taking a bit longer than we had hoped. This past winter, John suggested we replace that outer layer of rock with something better. John normally lives in Nevada, since he would be staying at the studio for a bit in March, we decided it was a good time to tackle the project.

The first step was to remove the rock. John had learned that a material called Diatomaceous earth (DT) could be used to create an insular shell over the kiln. A common use for this material is soaking up oil spills, so we found some at our local Napa Auto Parts and bought about 12 bags.

A close-up of Puff, after the river rock was removed.

Puff has been stripped of her outer shell of rock, and the DT bags are waiting to be torn open and used.

We blended the DT with some clay slop from the studios reclaim buckets (basically used/leftover clay). And then we built up a nice thick layer over the top of the kiln. We painted a thin layer of Sodium Silicate over the entire thing once done, to help reduce cracking as the DT and Clay mixture dried.

I didn’t get many pictures of this step, but John posted about it on his Instagram. The post should be linked below so you can see his pics. Below that is the few pics I had of this first layer in progress.

John evens out the first layer of insulation - DT and clay.

The first layer is done and drying.

The second and final layer is made up of more DT and more clay, plus cement and more sodium silicate. We mixed it all up in a wheel barrel, and started slathering it over the first layer of DT and clay.

John mixes the cement, clay, DT and sodium silicate, as I apply some to the front of the kiln

Compressing the final layer.

Relieved to be almost done with the project.

We’re very happy to be almost done here! We finished up this layer well before dark, and we were tired but pleased. The big test would come in about a month - in mid-April we fired Puff up for the first time since this modification. I will post more about that soon.