Cardinals, Budding Trees, and Wet Brick
It’s springtime and the trees are starting to bud and grow out their leaves. The dull brown and gray landscape of winter is finally starting to turn green. It is still cold in the mornings but things are improving a little. The cardinals chase each other around the kilns and peck at the bugs crawling on the updraft lids. The lids are heavy with moisture until they are fired out.
There are many stories about damp kilns and if you can allow them to get wet. If they are electric the components and control boxes should stay dry, but for the most part the brick steams right out. It takes a little time, though if you know the work is dry you could do a two hour warm-up then go right into the firing schedule.
Since the gas updrafts have no heating elements to worry about, the kiln steams out quite nicely. I have even placed pots on wet kiln shelves. I simply flip them over and place the pot on them for the bisque fire and start the slow two hour warm-up keeping the temperature under the boiling point of 212°F.
Some might believe that the moisture in the kiln steaming out would be absorbed into the pots. This seems not to be the case at all. Pots can only be as dry as the environment the pots dry in. So if there is high humidity you might need to dry the pots a little longer before the warm-up. Some will hold a mirror over vent ports or peep holes to try and see if moisture is still leaving the kiln. If the mirror fogs, it might be a good indication that the pots still have moisture. But this is only useful in dry kilns, as a mirror fogging from a wet kiln might not be the pots at all but just moisture coming out of the kiln lid.
If I were living yesterday a second time: I would have taken a photo of the cardinals on the kiln lids.
Things I am grateful for: Spring finally arriving after the long winter. Trees budding and turning the landscape green.
Days remaining if I live to 86: 12,707
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