Archive for September, 2006

Pit Fired Hot Dogs

Friday, September 22nd, 2006

This is a clip about lunch for the Pottery School pit fire at the beach. We forgot to bring BBQ equipment but hey you can do a lot with Raku tongs, Raku gloves, a shovel, a length of heavy gauge copper wire, and a healthy dose of ingenuity… Kudos to Mike, Liz, Aimee, et al. for being so inventive.

Pottery School Pit Fire at the Beach

Friday, September 22nd, 2006

This is a video clip of a group from The Pottery School in Pioneer Square doing a pit fire at the beach in late July.

The firing was pretty similar to the Vashon Island firing except most pieces had no terra sig on them. They were all bisqued to cone 06. Here is what I have written down in my notebook about the pit layout:

  • pine sawdust: ~3 inches
  • horse dung: ~ 1/4 to 1/2 inches
  • copper carb: ~ 1/2 coverage of pit bed
  • baking soda: sprinkled around (but not on top of) some pots (not a lot)

The pots were mostly in a single layer (only 2 small pots were on top of other pots.) Copper carb was used more sparingly than the Vashon firing, and there was none on top of the pots. Besides the usual salted raffia, Chore-Boy copper netting, and steelwool strands that I brought, the participants also used copper wire of different sizes, inclulding some heavy gauge ones, as a fuming material.
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