Students build FVCC’s first wood-fired kiln

(Fall 2011)

By RACHEL HAWKINS

Flathead Valley Community College has installed an experimental wood-fired kiln in the Arts and Technology Building. The kiln was built by ceramics instructor David Smith and his students last summer, and is the only wood-fired kiln at the college.

The experimental kiln is considerably smaller than the ceramic’s program’s other two kilns, which are large, down-draft soft-brick kilns.

Smith said the new kiln will expand the firing techniques students can learn.

“One reason we built the experimental wood-fired kiln is that we wanted to use salt and soda and of course wood ash, and all three will deteriorate soft brick kilns,” Smith said.

The kiln is unique in the way that the pieces that go in the kiln come out glazed with wood ash. In the wood-fired kiln the glaze and the clay change color due to the ash from the wood, creating a very unique, natural pattern on the clay. The kiln also provides a little visual history for students on how ceramics would have looked in earlier eras.

“Kilns have always been fired with wood, or in some cases with coal or dung, and people have been firing ceramics for thousands of years,” Smith said.

The kiln is still in its experimental stages and has only been fired twice due to the fact that it is difficult and time consuming to heat. Paula Engle, a ceramics student at FVCC, managed to set the high-temperature record at 2,350 degrees.

Smith said he wants to heat the small wood kiln to around 2,400 degrees or higher. Wood ash does not start to melt into a glaze until above 2,200 degrees, so there is “little point in firing it if we cannot consistently reach 2,400.”

The kiln is soon going to go through some remodeling. Smith said the chimney is too small, restricting airflow and making it harder to heat. A larger chimney encourages more consistent airflow because oxygen is necessary to burn fuel, which in turns make the kiln hotter.

“It will make it easier to maintain high temperatures,” Smith said.

Because of the kiln’s small size, it is easily affected by weather changes. With a bigger chimney the air will keep moving through the kiln regardless of the weather.

“That’s what I love about ceramics,” Smith said. “You can make anything.”

Rachel Hawkins is a student in Journalism 101C, News Writing and Reporting.