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Shout Out for Mark Cortright - Feb 2018 Ceramics Monthly


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Great issue with lots of info. I find Marks article very illuminating.  . . always wondered what those back woods people did in their spare time, as we know, Mark goes to the beach! Wow Callies article is also an eye opener!  Kudos to  both, Great JOB!

 

 

best,

Pres

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Thank you all for the shout out-Both Callie and I had PM'd each other about this happening in the same issue.

If you want to see my car kiln  and a double booth at a show its in the article  as well as some high fire glaze formulas in the back from me and Callie (hers are cone 6-7)

Her piece is on Marketing and mine covers some of that as well.

Thanks for the kind words.

 

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Thanks everybody! I have to thank a bunch of you guys, because CM reached out to me because of an answer I posted here on the topic a while back. I guess I sounded smart;) I'm in good company with Mark.

I'm still waiting for my snail mail copy, and I'm looking forward to seeing everything in print!

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13 hours ago, Mark C. said:

If you want to see my car kiln  and a double booth at a show its in the article

I looked at that car kiln and the first thing I thought that it was pretty scary. How do you things from rattling and falling?

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Ron

I have fired a car kiln on average 30 times a year for 4 decades-counting bisques and glaze fires (60 total a year )thats a lot of stacking.One learns the secrets of a stable  firm stack. All shelves are with three pot stilts (posts)You stack them so they are not wobbly as you go.This takes some tricks.

I use 3 sided stilts (tri-post)-that are 2 inches wide on each side (they stoped making these a few years ago out west here)now they are smaller and less stable .

A three sided stilt allows for more pots on a shelve than a square one.Especially round forms.

You lift a corner of the shelve so the post get to where they need to be. Repeat as you load.

I have lost a glaze load twice-once was a 7.0 earthquake-the other was a  melted stilt that failed near the bottom. I also lost part of a bisque while rolling in and there was a rock on track-most of green load went over(that was in the 90's) All this makes you get that pots are not precious and you just make another load.

After lots of stacking you no longer need a tape measure to measure pots as you get an eye for height of everything. I still use a tape to measure the top of load as I need to stop the height at 72 inch's off concrete floor.

Once the load is fired it super stable as its a bit  fuzed together.

You roll it in slowly and make sure the tracks are clean. With a car kiln you can load from 3 sides and its 100% better on your back, same with unloading.

If I had done this in an electric since the 70's my back would not be working anymore with the volume I have produced during this time span.

I made this one in the 70's and rebuilt it a few times since.Its got about 12 feet of brick in the stack(chimney ) and then another 15 feet of  10 inch diameter stainless steel with a bird screen on top.Its guy wired for stability on 3 points.I love stainless and also used it in my salt kiln stack as well.

I like the look of hard bricks so my outer layer is hard brick the inner layer is a mix of soft bricks -K28s in fire box and K 26s in side walls and down back wall-some k 23s in back wall.

The arch is all k28s. At this time I have fiber covering the side walls but it will give up the ghost after about 10 years. One side is starting to fail. The fiber and bricks are coated as well.-This is the current layout-over the decades I have had all k23s (many spalled in firebox) and at one time the whole kiln was fiber coated including the arch.All these techniques I have tried and learned from.

Speaking of arches mine is two layers-the inner is k28 the next is k23s and then about 4 inch of fiber. My side Walls are all 9 inches thick in kiln.

One last note many of my fellow production potters all use car kilns-I know of many out there.. Back in the day we all learned how to make them.. In the mid 80's  Lou Nils published the Minnesota flat top car kiln plans and that started another craze of car kilns. When I rebuilt mine  min the 80sI used Lou's tapered car seal design.I love arch kilns and have made many and arch.

Hopefully I covered what you asked.

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oh good!  somehow after reading this when it came out first it got lost and i could not find it.  (*&%$ DIFFICULT website!)  it was  too cold out here on the porch to find it but now that it is warm, here it comes again.  now i can say congratulations to both mark and callie, cannot wait to get a copy to read!

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I have had my head in paperwork for the last week!!!  I didn't even know about the articles featuring Callie and Mark!!!  So glad the articles were  mentioned!  I just read them both.  So proud to know both of you!  Great work.  I now know why you both have been a pottery voice in my head, down to earth and smart!  Congrats!

Roberta

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On 1/22/2018 at 7:18 AM, oldlady said:

somehow after reading this when it came out first it got lost and i could not find it

There is a "follow" box right up near the top of the page, it's beside the title of the thread. If you want to see what gets posted to a topic just click that and you will get notifications when someone makes a post to it, that way you can come back to it easily. Saves searching for a thread.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Now that this article is ancient history I can send it to anyone just send me a pm,include your email

the glaze formula part I do not have as a pdf so it’s only the main arcticlei can send out

i do not think cm will mind as its many months old now

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