John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

[debunix]

I presume the basics--like the discussion of countercurrent exhange--is correct?

[JBaymore]

I presume the basics--like the discussion of countercurrent exhange--is correct?

debunix,

Um... well....... not precisely with the ccountercurrent exchange example. Poor example to choose, but I get what the author was trying to explain.... but did not do so very well. I don't have the time right now to write what I need to to explain all of this stuff. I'll get back to it later for you.

best,

...........john

[togei]

Thanks John,
That is a big kiln.
Dave

[JBaymore]

That is a big kiln.

Not really, Dave. Yours is bigger, I think.

Started building it in 1980. It was sized so that I could fire it totally by myself. Which I still sometimes do. Otherwise, my pt apprentice and I do it together. Being a noborigama, and firing mainly glazed wares ...I use a 2 day firing, 3 day cool. The dogi has a small stackable area as do the chamber fireboxes for haikaburi, the first two chambers are larger than the last two. It takes only about 500-600 pieces to fill it.

best,

.............john

[togei]

Very interesting.
I thought firing by oneself was reserved for no-names like me. It is interesting to hear you fire by yourself sometimes. Even more interesting to hear you fire with only one other helper. I have the image of large groups of people helping in firing judging from some of the wood fueled kiln sites I see. I have one unpaid helper that comes up from Nara when I fire Nanban. He is the perfect helper. If I say we will finish in one hour or something to the effect that we might finish sometime tomorrow he has never shown fatigue or impatience. Other than that I usually fire by myself with a break to sleep where my wife attends to the dogi, ignoring the pyro.
Your kiln fires fast. It must be a Karatsu type? No? My Karatsu type nobori has 2 chambers that are roughly 1.5 meters by 1.5 meters by about 1 meter tall. It is modeled on Nishioka Kyoju's kiln. A full load in both rooms can hold about one hundred 35cm. by 45cm. shelves. I can fire it in roughly 36-48 hours with a 5-7 day cool. Any faster cool and the bottoms of my shoes melt in unloading.
Sincerely,
Dave

[JBaymore]

I just finished another firing of the noborigama here at my studio in New Hampshire and it is now cooling. I should be unloading tomorrow after three days of waiting to see the results.

Here are a few images from the last part of the work cycle and the firing:

Carrying pots out to the noborigama from the studio.

BaymoreNoborigamaLoading.jpg

Some Kuro-Oribe style chawan with the raw tenmoku (black) glaze awaiting loading.

Baymore-RawKuroOribeChawan.jpg

A synergistic synthesis of spirituality and technology: the sake offering to the gama kamisama on the dome of the main firebox with the pyrometer system in the background.

Baymore-ShintoBlessing-Pyrometer.jpg

[JBaymore]

Fire-y Birth of a Chawan

This is the process of Hikidashi-kuro for Chawan, or fire withdrawal black. It is a high risk / high reward process.

The pieces are removed from the kiln with tongs thru a port left for that purpose at Orton cone 11.....about 2400 F. They are then plunged into cold water or sometimes left to simply air cool.

Chawan being pulled from the kiln, as I am wearing protective leathers and a gold reflective face shield.

BaymoreHikidashiguro1.jpg

BaymoreHikidashiguro2.jpg

The bowl headed for the water bath.

BaymoreHikidashiguro3.jpg

[JBaymore]

The still glowing bowl fully under the surface of the water!

BaymoreHikidashiguro4.jpg

A series of all black hikidashi-kuro chawan cooling next to the kiln.

BaymoreHikidashiguro5.jpg

[IPT]

That looks so exciting! Thanks for sharing those photos.

[Chip]

... but are they dishwasher safe???

I was surprised to see the photos of the red hot chawan-s being removed directly from the kiln and submerged in water. I would have thought they would simply shatter into a bijillion pieces.

Is this common practice? I thought the kiln would be allowed to cool and then pieces removed.

Confused ...

[debunix]

I was surprised to see the photos of the red hot chawan-s being removed directly from the kiln and submerged in water. I would have thought they would simply shatter into a bijillion pieces.

The 'high-risk' part of this process seems pretty clear: bet quite a few of them DON'T survive it!

But what reward would make such risk worthwhile?

[togei]

Nice photos John,
I never tire of seeing photos of playing with fire.
Dave

[JBaymore]

That looks so exciting! Thanks for sharing those photos.

Thanks. Yeah... it is exciting.

But it is also a LOT of really hard work. Wood firing is a nutzo process........ THE most expensive way to fire .....because of the labor factor.

There is labor every which way you turn. Wood cutting and splitting, wood stacking, covering and uncovering wood at the right times to get it to dry properly, considering every single piece as you stack it into the kiln as to how the fire will play off and (hopefully) enhance the form, putting wadding onto the feet of pots and on any things like lids so that they don't stick to the kiln shelves or each other, using wadding on all the shelf posts so that they don't stick to the kiln shelves, then the little matter of stoking the kiln contuinuously for the entire firing, then getting all that wadding off the pieces and grinding the feet, cleaning up and grinding the kiln shelves and posts from the accumulated fusing ash, cleaning out all the "garbage" that accumulates in the fireboxes and such, and last of all maybe doing some fine polishing of some types of surfaces on certain wares.

Ugh....... makes me tired just writing that.

And shortly today... I will go out and start unloading.

best,

...........john

[JBaymore]

... but are they dishwasher safe???

I was surprised to see the photos of the red hot chawan-s being removed directly from the kiln and submerged in water. I would have thought they would simply shatter into a bijillion pieces.

Is this common practice? I thought the kiln would be allowed to cool and then pieces removed.

Confused ...

The hikidashi-guro process is for a "special" sort of chawan finish, Chip. It creates a different look from the glaze surface. And it is high risk. Out of those five bowls....... I'll probably get one that "works" between thermal stress as well as the firing effects. Two of the five had a crack that was objectionable. "Cost of doing business".

For the water quenched pieces the thermal shock does "nail" the clay body a bit. It is filled with micro-fracutres. So the bowls have a different "feel" from a slow cooled piece. Feels a bit more like a Raku bowl than a stoneware bowl. The air cooled pieces do not have as much of this affect on the clay body.

The water process is much more "dramatic" and photogenic.

And no, it is not common practice here in the East, Chip. Very specialized Japanese process. I am sure that there must be some potters other than me here in the States doing it.... but I have not run into any yet. I also use a process of burrying a whole chamber of pieces in wood charcoal at the end of the firing that is common in Japan (a Bizen technique) that few to none do here in the USA.

best,

.............john

[JBaymore]

I was surprised to see the photos of the red hot chawan-s being removed directly from the kiln and submerged in water. I would have thought they would simply shatter into a bijillion pieces.

The 'high-risk' part of this process seems pretty clear: bet quite a few of them DON'T survive it!

But what reward would make such risk worthwhile?

debunix,

The nature of the particular glaze surface is the "lure" here. And these types of pieces command pretty high prices due to the rareity. The only thing I do this way are Chawan.

The same "what makes it worthwhile" can be really pretty much be said of the entirety of woodfired work. As I mentioned to Chip above, the labor alone makes woodfiring "stupid" in many ways. You add to the absurd labor factor the higher than "typical" failure rates for woodfired wares, and it really starts to look like a masochistic approach. But the effects that you get on the woodfired pieces are what makes it all worth it. There is no other way to get the same kind of effects on the fired ware. And this is why woodfired work commands the higher prices that it does.

best,

.............john