BURNING PROJECTS
Knowledge development for the firing of large monolithic stoneware sculptures in situ.
A project starting in the spring of 2016
Project Report B
In spring 2016, we secured funding from the Swedish Arts Council for the project:
Knowledge development for firing large monolithic stoneware sculptures in situ.
Project leaders: Eva and Åke Nobling.
For a few years now, a number of large monolithic ceramic sculptures have been waiting to be fired at our place at Lokatta Keramik, on Gotland.
On site is an 11 m³ gas kiln that was built in connection with the EU-funded project when the large ceramic sculptures were also built.
For a few years now, we have been building large ceramic sculptures ourselves, inspired by the South Indian technique of building very large monolithic ceramic sculptures.
In May 2016, we contacted a number of people (mainly ceramists) to build a firing team that can learn how to handle the large kiln.
The firing needs to be managed and supervised by at least 2 people around the clock for approx. 2 days. The kiln has 16 burners that can be controlled individually and in groups of 4.
The placement of the burners, gas pressure, the order of the burners, ignition cycle, etc. There is a lot that needs to be done and adjusted during the firing process.
We got a group of approx. 15 people together. During the summer, Åke and Eva prepared the kiln and the firing. The last 4 weeks were pretty much full-time.
The last week of September we did the first firing, which we call the 2nd firing. The kiln's first firing was done a few years ago, just after the kiln was completed.
Kiln engineer Håkan Fredholm from Lidköping came here.
On Monday 26/9-2016, Åke, Eva and Håkan went through the final preparations for the firing. We also did a complete gas leak check.
On Tuesday morning, just over 10 people from the firing team came. Håkan gave an introduction about firing, gas and the kiln itself. We went through all the details, ran the "architectural" sculpture into the kiln, closed, divided the firing sessions (6 hours each) and started the firing at 17:30.
The idea was to only dry fire during the night, so that the temperature would be 100° on Wednesday morning. Then increase it slowly so that on Thursday morning we would reach 600°. Then we fired harder to finally reach 1200° late on Thursday evening.
Already at 2 o'clock on the first night, the flue gases at the chimney felt completely dry. Therefore, the heat increase was increased faster than planned. Instead of reaching 600° on Thursday morning, we reached there already on Wednesday at 16:00.
The firing progressed very stably and well, which is why we continued at a faster pace than originally planned.
Thursday 03:00 we reach 1200° and begin an hour of equalization. Håkan takes care of the equalization by fine-tuning the gas pressure on the different burners. For an hour, the temperature fluctuates between 1200° and 1202°.
04:00 we close and damper the chimney for slow cooling.
Sunday afternoon we open the kiln and pull out the sculpture.
The firing has gone very well, beautiful color, lots of variations, a few cracks, but nothing more than that they can be repaired.