My New Homemade Kiln for Pottery:
Winter is here again, beautiful yes. But winter makes wood-fired pottery so much harder. Snow and unfired clay is a chapter on its own. And it’s freezing-cold staying outside 18 hours firing a kiln. So I have to continue when spring comes.
Just made it before winter! It’s not a beauty, but it’s there, my latest brick wood-fired kiln. It’s based on the same design as my first brick kiln: /how-to-build-a-kiln-for-pottery/
I shortend the fire-chamber, the total kiln it’s longer with more space for ceramics. And the pipe is higher, but is the diameter too small to make enough draft? I guess time will show.
Testfire showed the pipe had some draft, but not enough to make a lively fire; it burned nice and slow, just like a wood stove. It’s just not enough draft to reach high temperatures. Adding an exhaust pipe into the fire and blowing air in with a small fan changed it all. Now the fire burned with intensity. Interestingly, the pipe handeled all the extra air from the fan.
Minus 9 degrees Celsius was a cold working day. The slow fire was perfect for raising the temperature over the most critical temperatures. And though I reached 600-700 degrees only using the draft from the pipe, it takes too long time for the temperature to climb (the stones was wet from days of rain, it takes hours to steam off too). Next time I use the fan. Hopefully, it can reduce the burning time by 50%. But firing with frozen trash wood full of water just didn’t work at all.
Secured the kiln with steel wires.
When I bought this place there was a lot of old trash wood around on the land, guess I can fire pottery and clean up in the same time.
2024 – I didn’t make it!
Winter is here, and snow arrived before I was able to fire up the new kiln. There is no problem firing the pottery kiln even in winter and snow. Except, it’s cold to be outside for 18 hours adding wood to the kiln, so I wait patiently til spring. In the meantime (and with good help from my wife), we slide more stuff and two empty oil barrels to their final destination, where they will be repurposed into hot burning ceramic kilns as soon as spring arrives.
I bought a new cabin (an old one, but you know; new to me) and moved in. Transporting all my stuff was a lot of work, especially my refractory stones. I don’t know the total weight, but it took many trips with my car.
My New Homemade Kiln for Pottery! Or not much of a kiln yet, but here it comes! I just need to flatten this place first, and it’s muddy now in all the autumn rain. But here is a simple foundation, I don’t have time to make a better fondation before the winter, and I hope I have time to fire up the kiln a time or two before the snow comes (it’s just a lot of winter and snow here in the mountains).
My New Homemade Kiln for Pottery!
And, as you can see, I have started flattening an area for my new kiln. It doesn’t look like much work, but it is! Let’s hope I can finish it and do some test-firings before winter.
See my best kiln so far here:
how-to-build-a-wood-fired-pottery-kiln/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dandiffendale/15129096038
My New Homemade Kiln for Pottery! – 2025