After two phases of refreshing sleep, through the day, I reached the pottery in time to take over for my shift. It was amazing how the day crew managed to reach cone 9 down. At the time the pyrometer was showing 1210 deg centigrade.
It sure wasnt easy, but a great work.
Slowly the story of the day was revealed.
The temperature in the morning when I finished the first night shift, on the pyro said 850, but the pots in the kiln did not look that hot. Questions arose as we,the night crew left. but it took couple of hours to figure out that the PYRO!! wasnt showing the correct temperature(brand new pyro!!!), with an exchange with an old pyro showed the right temp of 450?!!(instead of 850), which looked correct.
CAN YOU BELEIVE IT??
Yes I can, things like this happen.
Inspite of that.... meaning being behind schedule!
The day crew, of course with experience of Ray hauled to post 1100 degree centigrade by afternoon. Thats incredible!
With the usual fun of keeping stuck at a temperature for a while and then figuring a way of gaining some temp.. at 6pm, they were very close to the desired state of the kiln.
The night crew took over. Iber, Neha, Krishnamurthy(potter from Mandala) and me. Adil was there with his ongoing fever, and Madhvi for a few hours.
It was great, just had to keep stoking and the kiln behaved beautifully.
The temperature rose to about 1250, and the higher cones went down.
Then we started putting in wood from the side stock hole into the firebox two, here the pots are stacked on the floor, and the wood burns on top of the pots. Hence, we are very carful of not doing a vigourous stoke. Slowly landing the wood on top of the pots, and essentially building up a pile of amber(burning wood) on them. Also, our job was to keep the temperature between 1200-1250, which we managed, Thanks to the kiln Gods!
sooooooooper
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