Well, you had better break the rest of the bad news about shino....
(It's kinda tough on kilns; appreciably shortens their usable lifetime)
I believe That's where saggars come in. Interesting timing in resurrection of their use, with onset of shino-love among Norte Americano potters.
Sorta buffers the Bad News; limits kiln damage.
Tell 'em how much wadding you use and how long it takes to set up a kiln run.
I'm not a potter, but I got friends that are...I see the love and pride in their craft handiwork, willingness to work lengthy stints (days to weeks*) minding traditional kilns, often around the clock when the fires on.
* You work with bacteria and tissue, you are in the lab when your cultures need tending (day/night, weekends, holidays), often followed by grueling/tedious batch purification runs, 14-20 hour days, sometimes running for up to three weeks, with 'iffy' yields at the end. Shift work if you got enough bodies in the lab. Otherwise, not much sleep.
Short reward for long labor. Cells and proteins don't care if you sleep or not. Neither does ceramics/pottery.
While the dedication required is not unique to ceramics Intuit you really have a good grasp of it all. Similar to many art forms, research science too perhaps....
But then again life is choices ........
Regarding kiln life, I don't know what your reference point is.... western Shino with caustic soda ash which can shorten kiln life, or Japanese Shino with 80 to 120 hour firing cycles which also shorten kiln life. The saggars were originally made to protect the ware from the ash in wood kilns and rumour has it that the Mino style chawan shape imitated saggars.
Again Intuit.....many thanks.
R
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