Wood Firing at Oxford Kilns

Two fast-fire wood kilns were fired at Oxford Kilns, with teams of potters from Farnham Pottery and Culford Studios. Each firing took around ten hours, reaching cone 12.

Both kilns were fired with waste pallet wood. The firings involved a constant balance between building temperature, managing the ember bed and controlling reduction as we worked towards 1300°C. We experimented with two different cooling approaches; crash cooling one kiln and cooling the other in reduction. Allowing us to compare how the cooling atmosphere affected the finished surfaces.

Both firings were very successful and form part of my ongoing exploration of wood firing and ash-glazed surfaces