native pottery

[iowabow]

I would like to get past 1065 "quartz inversion"

[iowabow]

When we hit 1065 so i am happy

[iowabow]

Well i rearanged the fire by pulling the coals back to black then let them ignite. And built a fire 6 inches above the coals and this brought the temp from 850 to 1000 very fast.

[iowabow]

So see the gap in the burning wood and coals. What you are doing with the first half of firing is making charcoal the second half you burn it for a hotter fire. Yes you are seeing bow wood and a lot of it hehe. It is not the good stuff.

[iowabow]

 

[iowabow]

We hit 1027

[JackCrafty]

This is great!  Love this thread!

[iowabow]

Going to let the fire die now 911am

[iowabow]

Hmmmm 911  not good numbers...
Anyway a couple notes: I called the fire department before hand to make sure there was not a burn ban in effect. Also I was sure to drink lots of water during the burn. With hot weather and high heat you can have issues. The last thing you want is to pass out into your fire. This fire will burn for many hours and should produce a product that will tell us something about the clay the shell and the temp we used. We dont need an unbroken pot to gather tons of information.
I used bark and ashes to slow the heating of our pot but another option could be broken pottery.  This we do not have yet. So if it breaks we will use it to prevent the next one from breaking. I hope the pot makes it but if not we will do it again in a couple of weeks.

[StevenT]

Only thing I see your missing is a BBQ smoker with a side fire box. You could be smoking some awesome pork alone with the pots.    Can't wait to see how it all turns out.

[iowabow]

This is great!  Love this thread!

Just like a bunch of kids lol but we dont get in trouble when the parents come home. Kids dont even try this at home without a parent!!!!! Really the fire can light the grass on fire. I watered the ground real good and it rained.

[MWirwicki]

Really cool thread, John.  The anticipation is killing me....

[iowabow]

Well the sun's out and we been going at this drop for just  about an hour or so and we've only got about a 50 degrees drop and that is what we want. Time 10:03am

[iowabow]

Here are a couple pictures of the set up. The temp probe was placed below the fire but was not heat sheilded and may account for the rapid rise in the temp data. I am hoping that the pot did not come to temp at fast. Also there is a smaller pot without shell as a small test. It had a small crack already that occuried during the drying.

[iowabow]

I am glad you guys are following this real time it is more fun that way. Well we have an hour before  we need to record the temp again so i think i will go check the deer cam but first i need to water the grass around the fire.