We unloaded the first 53 pieces from the new 16. We had a small problem during the firing as this was the first glaze load we had fired in this kiln. Had to stop it, reprogram it, and restart it so we were a little nervous cracking the lid open today, however everything looks good. Unloaded it and reloaded it with the final 27 pieces plus a bowl for an internet order, and started it up again. The temperature was still at 180 when we started this firing! OK, maybe we are pushing a little bit, but these pots have to come out first thing Friday morning so they can be picked up by the client. The other 16 is cooling and at 1200 when we left for the day so we can unload it tomorrow afternoon. We are feeling better. Has been a hectic couple of weeks though.
I’m still trying to get started photographing for the web site. I have visited a few photo stores looking for a graduated backdrop, however after visiting with a lighting specialist today at Light Tools I got some good pointers on how to light pottery for photography and should be able to get at it soon.
Cindy has been throwing orders from the show and is making good progress. I have some slabs to build tomorrow plus I want to get all the pots from the big Friday order that are out of the kiln ready to go tomorrow, so looks like another busy day.
nite
John’s birthday was last Tuesday but he decided to celebrate this past weekend with a few of the guys. They all came over for Saturday afternoon and night. We took them to West Edmonton Mall to the Waterpark and turned them loose for a few hours then back to the house for food and cake. Three of his friends got together and paid for a “Discovery Flight” at the City Centre Airport at a Centennial Flight School there. He met a flight instructor there who took him through an introduction and inspection of the aircraft , a Cessna 172, then the instructor, and John, Cindy and Kaileigh took a half hour flight out to the west of the city. John got to fly most of the way and put his hundreds of hours at Microsoft Flight Simulator into practice. I’m not sure his feet have touched the ground yet, althought the aircraft landed at 2 o’clock Sunday afternoon.
Back at the studio we got hard at it Monday morning. We had loaded both kilns for a bisque and fired them Friday then I went to shoot some video with Chris Craig (in a graveyard!) but that is another story. Sunday the kilns were still at over 300 degrees so we were unable to unload them until Monday morning. As we unloaded them I started taping and waxing to get them ready for glaxing while Cindy worked on mixing a glaze we were short of. Turned out we were also short of Feldspar so we had to call Larry from Plainsman at home and arrange to meet him on his day off. Very good of him to do this as we would have been unable to get the 110 piece order done in time otherwise. We glazed all the pieces that would fit in the two kilns and reloaded both kilns and got the new one firing and the old one on timer by a little after 7 pm. Very long day.
Tuesday we finished glazing the rest of the pieces and will be unloading and reloading the new kiln today.
Chris got back from Calgary after meeting with the oil guys and we definitely have a video to shoot in the next couple of weeks so I’ll add that to my schedule.
The large order for Friday is almost on schedule. We should make it with seconds to spare. Cindy started throwing some more orders yesterday afternoon as I am going to be unreliable around the studio for the next week or so as I work with Chris.
More Later.
Jim