Travelled up to Scotland in glorious weather to firing Nigel’s kiln in Arday. Couldn’t have been more different than the snow and ice from the firing in March! I even had dip in the River Carron which flows behind the kiln it was so hot. As ever Nigel had loads of pots to glaze and fire and had already loaded about half the kiln before I arrived. We had a leisurely two days to finish glazing and loading the kiln. We put the gas burning on gently over night to dry out the pots and Nigel started firing the kiln around 6am. I joined him at around 7:30. The weather was a bit damp but now we have the “Mason Extension” added to the kiln shed we kept pretty dry. The firing went smoothly and we reached 1000C Cone 010 pretty easily and did a reduction for about an hour and a half. The final push to cone 10 went well with the usual slight stalling at around 1230C. We even got to 1300C on the pyrometer. We did a soak for an hour and finished firing 19:30. We visited Lotte Glob Danish potter who lives by Loch Eriboll on our rest day while the kiln cooled. As usual opening the kiln was filled with anticipation. We had lots of nice pots with some good effects from the Tenmoku glaze which I was pleasured with. There were also some great melts from ash glaze. Over all we considered it one of best firings.
David Mason Pottery 
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