Upwey Potters Soda Firing Number 38

June 2007

The Upwey Potters are a group of ceramic artists who live & work in Upwey, Dorset, England, making and selling their work and running Workshops.

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This page gives images of Bill's pots from the 38th soda kiln firing

This was another "Raw" firing, that is without biscuit firing the ware beforehand, of beakers based on Bronze Age shapes.

The batch of Beakers were inspired by ancient drinking vessels, with strips of decoration applied by repeatedly pushing a comb into the damp surface. Bill refers to these as "Fusion Ware", as they combine the techniques of several cultures!

Firing 38 was a very heavily reduced firing, with the damper pushed further in at times to restrict the updraught and so introduce partially burnt gas into the chamber, that sought out the oxygen in the iron within the clay body and glaze and turned it pleasingly darker.

The temperature was higher than necessary and some beakers were slightly blistered on the insides, also a result of being heavily reduced too soon, so that the surface becomes sealed and the gasses of decomposition could not escape without disrupting the surface.

However considerably less gas than usual was burnt, so we learnt something - the damper can be pushed a lot further in to save fuel.

The soda was sprayed only at the sides of the kiln, as an experiment, which did not produce better results! Some outer pots were too heavily coated and some in the middle were dry.

The first view of firing No 38

The upper layers, looking good!

One of the better beakers, with good even soda

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