GuppiE April 2026 Firing Crew Overview

​Guppie April 2026 

We've just wrapped a firing of the guppie. It was a good firing overall for sure. The Kiln was responsive throughout the entire firing. Claire did the Wednesday night overnight shift and did a great job bringing it to cone 8/9 bending in the front. Deb and Barb brought the kiln up in temperature and bumped at 2150 throughout their shift on Thursday. The afternoon shift bumped at 2200 etc until on Friday afternoon we were bumping at 2300. ^11 began to move Thursday late night / early morning on friday. Bumping at 2300 all night moved cone 11 from 15° to 45°. ^12 and 13 curled up front but did not drop. We bumped at 2300 all day Friday and Friday night; we bumped at 2350. The kiln reached as high as 2450 by the end with cone 12 and 13 standing up front and cone 12 moving from 15° to 45° on the side. As we transitioned into shut down / RC mode, the Kiln was brought to top temps and loaded with pine. I closed off the active dampers once the load began to mature and closed the chimney briefly. I then realized there was probably still too much fuel left in the firebox wood and released the gases by opening the kiln shelf cap; resulting in a flame burst at the chimney the kiln then burned down for 10 or 15 minutes. The chimney top was re-capped and, once the chamber cleared, we began the reduction cool process. We used hardwood creating heavy reduction cycles 5 minutes reduction to 2 minutes clearing for a few hours. Hannah ran that overnight and, later that morning, we began using pine and stoking a little less often. 

By the way, after shutdown, the kiln held on to top temps and took about 2 hours to drop down to 2150. During the day on Saturday we continued stoking Pine and implemented longer reduction/oxidation cycles. At top temps, the Kiln never fully cleared as it was still hazy during our clearing cycle. This was due to the fact that the embers in the firebox took hours to burn down, slowing the cool down process for sure. 24 and a half hours later the Kiln was finally to 1500. It's at 620° now on Monday morning. Tomorrow, the Kiln should be around 500 degrees and we’ll drop the side door to take a peek. 

I think the variable that was different this time was the heavier firebox load at shut down in tandem with the tight slipped-paper seal of the entire kiln. The effects will vary from other RC cycles because of that. It appears that the front wall, although the ember bed was full and ash blanketed the big pots in the firebox for hours on end, the front pots themselves had 2 hours above 2150 after shutdown to melt so it appears that the front-stack pots aref fairly clean. I didn't see any Ash flying toward the pottery as the kiln produced no draft that I could perceive. 
Because of the high ember bed, we got a different kind of flame than in the Beluga with a clean fire box. Rather than a white clear burning flame at the oxidation cycle, a transparent yellow flame indicated oxidation. I thought temps, there was always a bit of a haze in the chamber due to the firebox numbers. I'm wondering if the surfaces will be more velvety and I'm looking forward to seeing the color range this time. 

My hope is that an added layer of subtlety and nuance with regard to our process has been infused through our recent firing experience. Combined with the information that will come on wednesday’s unload; we're all a step forward on our fiery path! 
Thanks everybody for being a part of it and I'll add to this document once we've unloaded.

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