Monthly Archives: October 2024

K-Pot Journal 4

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After the successful firing of my kiln, which could have been better, but served well as a proof of concept firing. I have a couple of other jobs lined up while I’m in Korea. One of them was for an institution, but the person in charge hadn’t applied for permission to build a kiln there until last week, so no permission was forthcoming – at least not in time. I couldn’t build a kiln in an institution without permission, just in case it was refused, or so slow in coming that it would be approved for the next financial year, either way. I wouldn’t be able to get paid for any work done now. So I decided to move on to the next job.

One of the potters working on the big kiln in Bangsan Porcelain Village, named Mr Kim tells me that he has built a downdraught firebox wood kiln at this home on the east coast, but it didn’t work all that well. We have been discussing this over dinner in the evenings. I show him my plans for the Bangsan kiln and all the mathematics that I use to work out all the dimensions for the various openings, firebox, flues, throat and chimney etc. He asks me to come with him after this job here is over, he’ll drive me to his place and I can look at his kiln and make any suggestions that I can think of to help him improve it. He tells me that he’ll drive me back again afterwards as well. This is good news, as my suitcase is now approaching 30 kgs with the load of sericite stones that I have recently added to it. Catching public transport is a bit of an ordeal with such a heavy bag. I decide to go through it and jettison everything that is not essential. I get rid of 5 kgs in that effort.

We set off to cross the country, over the mountain range that runs down this part of South Korea. We stop at a famous lookout to view back to where we have just come.

I look over the edge of the viewing deck and unsettlingly, I can see what appears to be the previous wooden deck that has collapsed into the ravine below us!

The trip is several hours to the East Coast and it turns out that Mr Kim owns a hotel and restaurant on the top of a cliff over-looking the sea. He tells me that I can stay in one of the empty rooms for the next few days while he shows me around. We dine in the restaurant run by his daughter and son-in-law and the next day at dawn we are off for a walk down to the harbour to see the sun rise.

After our walk, mr Kim takes me to the local fish markets, where we buy fish, tofu, vegetables, chillies and pickles for the restaurant.

If you ever think that you might need 20 kgs of dried chillis. I know where to get it.

Mr Kim tells me that he built the hotel 20 years ago, and moved his growing family here from their first home that he built up in the mountains an hour inland from here. He studied architecture and engineering at university and set up his practice high in the mountains where they were snowed in for 3 months of the year. It is a very old subsistence farming area with a lot of ’National Trust’ Listed and preserved farm buildings that date back hundreds of years. These old farm houses were preserved because the climate is so difficult up there, no one could be bothered to pull them down and rebuild on the site. Mr Kim operated his practice during the winter lock-down through the internet. Korea has really excellent internet coverage and speeds. He and his wife raised 3 children up there. He tells me that he will take me up there to see the old place. He still owns it. He tells me to bring a jacket.

We drive up the narrow, winding, mountain roads full of mist and fog, the air is getting colder. I can feel the chill in the air deepen. I’m glad that he warned me to bring a jacket. We drive for an hour or so until we crest one of the mountain peaks and discover a clearing with a very ancient farm house on it. There are row upon row of stone buttressed retaining walls to make garden beds on the steep hilly terrain. Generations of farmers have toiled here in this soil, so high up on this mountain. I can feel the aches and pains of all this endeavour, solidly secreted in this soil, and in these terraces.

The old house is a combination of earth and timber. The roof is made of timber shingles that have been split from massive slabs of wood. It’s a beautiful old farm house.

We drive on over the next hill and come to a stop in the narrow street. He hops out and ushers me across a narrow little bridge over a torrent and into a grassy clearing between a few old hexagonal pavilions. There are row upon row of old ongi jars lined up around the edges of the grassy clearing. It hasn’t been mowed for some time and everything is quite derelict looking – but very familiar. 

I’m struck by an intense feeling of deja vu! 

I turn to him and say the strangest thing.  “I’ve been here before”. I’ve lived here! Actually, I’ve slept in that building over there and had a meal in that building there!”  

It’s so unbelievable. I can’t believe it. At first, I’m not even sure if what is coming out of my mouth somewhat unintentionally is really true, but the more that I look and take it all in, the more that I’m sure. Yes. I’ve stayed here! But this place is so remote! It’s almost impossible!

Mr Kim is taken aback. His eyes are wide. He is shocked at what I’m saying, and so am I, Because it couldn’t possibly be true. Am I just joking?

Is there some sort of lost-in-translation effect happening? He doesn’t believe me. He tells me “No one comes up here. There is nothing here. Most of these farms are abandoned.  How could it be?”

I’m perfectly sure of it now, as I look around and take in more of the details, it is all coming back to me. Yes! I’ve stayed here 8 years ago! Mr Kim looks puzzled, then his face lights up. “Yes, of course. I let a young potter live here 8 years ago rent free, if he rebuilt my wood fired kiln for me in lue of rent.”  He was Mr Jaeyong Yi!

When I came to Korea for the first time in 2016, my translator, guide and driver. Ms Kang SangHee drove me up here from Cheongsong way down south. We were on a mission to find ancient sites where sericite porcelain was first developed. I had met Mr Jaeyong Yi down there in Cheongsong. He had invited us to stay with him in his house, in the mountains, as it was on our way to Taebaek up north to visit another sericite location. I wrote all about that adventure up here in Taebaek, back then in my first Korean blog,

 ’The Kim Chi Chronicles – part 3, 16/9/16 on <’tonightmyfingerssmellofgarlic.com’>

Mr Jaeyong Yi was most hospitable and looked after us very well at that time. The grounds are not as well kept anymore, now that no one lives here. But it still has a charm about it.

We walk around and laugh at the impossibility of it all and the absurdities of life.

Our next stop is to drive down the coast for another hour farther south to catch up with an old friend that we both know. HyeJin Jeon, was a PhD student in the Yanggu Porcelain Research Centre in Bangsan some 6 or 7 years ago. I bumped into her a couple of times on different trips to Korea during her studies there. We became friends and kept in touch by email over the years. She graduated with her PhD a few years ago, and has recently been appointed as the Professor of Ceramics at the Gangneung University on the East Coast. Its not that far further south from where we are. 

HyeJin Jeon is very pleased to see us and gives me a big hug. It’s been 6 years since I last saw her in Bangsan.

She shows us around her faculty, then the three of us spend the day going around all the Museums and ancient buildings in Gangneung city. We stay on for dinner and drive home in the dark. It was very nice to catch up after so long. I’m pleased that she is doing well.

The next day, Mr Kim shows me his kiln, I go over it, I measure all of its critical features and then spend an hour drawing up a sketch and working out the exact proportions of its openings. I come to the conclusion that the flue needs to be bigger, much bigger. Bigger by 3 times! This is the major problem. But the fire box could also be larger again by half as well. These alterations wont be easy, but are doable. I also suggest that it might be better in the long run if he starts again from scratch. I give him the plans for my kiln that I built in Bangsan as a starting point to help him get the best outcome. He looks at my page of calculations and announces. “ You are not just an artist, you are a scientist!”

Instead of driving me back up to Bangsan, after some discussion, we decide that it will be best if Mr Kim drives me to the local station, so that I can catch a train across to Yeoju and visit both Mr Lee JunBeum and my old friend, former driver, translator and guide, Kang SangHee. 

It’s good to see Ms Kang SangHee again too, I catch her taking my picture when I’m not looking, so I reciprocate.

We meet up in Mr Lee’s wife’s cafe and bakery, where Ms Kang is helping her bake the days bread. 

We spend the day travelling to all 3 sites of the ceramics Biennale. There are some very impressive ceramics on show. Later, I am able to help JunBeom with his new kiln. The least that I can do to show my appreciation for all his help.

The next day JunBeom and Yoomi drive me to visit the National Treasure potter of traditional sgraffito slip decoration, called Buncheong.

His name is Park Sang Jin and they get a long chat in Korean, insight into which I get through occasional translations from Jun Beom, then we all get a guided tour of his workshop, gallery and kilns.

On my last day in Korea we travel south to the city of Andong to visit the other Mr Kim, Kim SangGe, we worked closely together on the Bangsan kiln and he invited me to visit him if I was ever in Andong. He has an amazing roof structure over his workshop and kiln shed. Possibly cast concrete, but with a decorative layer of old weathered and broken roof tiles applied as a kind of mosaic. It’s really beautiful. Artists are just so imaginative and creative in everything that they do. I wish that I’d thought of doing that! Mind you, I don’t have access to thousands of old weathered and broken roof tiles, nor the funds to have an undulating concrete roof cast in-situ. Not the sort of thing that I could ever own, but I’m very pleased to be able to visit.

Mr Kim Sang Ge, serves us a special tea made from dried Tibetan chrysanthemum flowers. Interesting, but not particularly flavourful or tasty. He asks if I like it, and I reply yes – just to be polite, what else can I say? He then gives me the whole packet. I thank him warmly, but I know that I can’t bring it back into Australia, so I give it to Jun Beom when we get home. It was very generous of him and I appreciate that. 

Mr Kim led the kiln building team that built the 5 chamber kiln in Bangsan that Janine and I experienced firing back in April this year, see my blog entry;  <Kiln Firing in KoreaPosted on 13/05/2024>

Mr Kim’s kiln is made from thousands of hand made cone shaped raw clay fire brick blocks to form the domes of each chamber, plus an equal number of rectangular blocks used for the walls.

Mr Kim takes us to see the spectacular fire ceremony that takes place this time each year as part of the Traditional Harvest Festival in Andong. There is a tiny traditional Hanok Village of small, earth and timber, thatched roofed buildings, set in the bend of a river, opposite some steep cliffs. it’s an idillic spot, exceptionally beautiful. Each year at this time the ancient founders of the village are remembered by hoisting ropes up across the river, over to the cliffs and hanging burning hand made flares made from leaves and twigs. The sparks flutter down from the ropes into the river in the night sky. It’s quite dramatic. There are no modern fireworks going ‘bang’! Just the gentle cascade of sparks down from the sky.

I’ve been so lucky to have been able to witness so many wonderful things on this trip. Not my usual artist in residence stay in just one place or a simple conference presentation.  One of my planned kiln jobs evaporated, but was replaced with a multitude of very different experiences. I am very grateful to all my Korean friends! Thank you!

Nothing is perfect, nothing is ever finished, and nothing last forever.

K-Pot Journal 3

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In the evenings after the days kiln work and dinner, we are all allowed into the Porcelain Museum pottery room, so that we can all make some pots to put in the first firing of my kiln. I don’t know whose idea this was, but it’s a very good one. Everyone has contributed to its construction, and as it’s such an unusual kiln for these parts. It’s a very good idea for everyone to get to see a pot of theirs fired in it. NO Pressure!

It turns out that there are two ‘National Treasure’ potters in our crew here. But everyone is a famous potter from their own regional district. They all come together to do these big kiln building events at special places around the country. A loose conglomerate of like minded and highly skilled artists all contributing their own particular skill set to these big projects.

We pack the kiln with our bisque fired and glazed pots, with other contributions from the research students as well. There is only just enough pots to fill the kiln. I could have fitted more work in if there was any. But there is just enough.

Interestingly, they don’t use digital pyrometers or pyrometric cones here. Traditional firing is judged by colour, sound, smell, smoke and flame. Using years of experience with a particular type of kiln, to judge the progress of the firing. They do however use small glazed tiles as draw trials to gauge the degree of glaze melt, and something that I haven’t come across before, and that is the use of a small amount of stiff glaze paste, that is rolled between the fingers into a small length of pasta sized rod and set in some wadding. This little 3mm dia. rod of glaze will melt at top temperature and fall over, in much the same way that we use pyrometric cones as pyroscopes. 

I suddenly realise that I’m really out of my depth here. I usually rely on a digital pyrometer to tell me how I’m going. Now I have to go back to basics and look and listen very closely to the fire to make my decisions. Luckily I’ve also done this before too, so I’m OK, but would prefer the  reassurance of a pyrometer to confirm my decisions. Until very recently, we used ‘handheld’, battery operated, digital meters. This meant that you had to go over to where it was and switch it on, to see the LCD display the temperature. They are cheap – very cheap – $10 to $15, pretty reliable and because they are intermittent, they teach you how to look and listen to the kiln, to watch the fire and see how the wood is burning. How the flame is developing, and not just stare at the screen. Since the big fire here. We lost everything, and I bought 240 volt LED permanent temperature displays, online from China for $30, so I have recently become addicted to screen watching in my dotage. Luckily, I still retain some of my mental capacities, well learnt and polished to a finely detailed finish. So just like my stick welding skills, my firing skills are soon retrieved from the dustbin of the recesses of my mind. 

In the late 1960’s, when I built my first kiln. No one owned a pyrometer. They were just so expensive. They were totally out of reach. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I learnt a lot. I wouldn’t recommend this learning strategy. Using an intermittent pyrometer is the better way to learn so much faster and without the losses that I incurred. My first pyrometer was an analogue, needle indicator, galvanometer. They were quite inaccurate and it taught me not to trust them. A wise decision. They are nearly always wrong. I use them to tell me if i’m going in the right direction. Up or Down. That’s it! I leave the decision as to wether the kiln is finished or not to the use of draw trials, test rings and pyrometric cones.

It is very important to me to fire this kiln well, not just get it to temperature, but do it in a steady, constant, reduction, so that all the usual reduced stoneware glazes that they use here will come out as they expect. BUT, most importantly, to fire the kiln with as little smoke as possible. As that is the main reason for me to be here doing this. This kiln is a demonstration of low emission wood firing.

I must admit that as the only fuel here is 5 year old very dry and seasoned pine wood, that burns very fiercely and fast, I have my work cut out to keep the kiln in reduction, but to minimise the smoke at the same time. As it turns out, I can never get to the stage of filling the hobs with progressively combusting wood, as it is designed to do. I ask if there is any hard wood available and I’m told that it can be obtained, but not at short notice. In fact hard woods like oak and acacia are cheaper than pine, so they will get some in for the next firing. But for now, I have to carefully juggle the wood level in the fireboxes. This means constant attention to detail, so this is not really a Laid Back Wood Firing at all, but a rather busy one. AND, not a smokeless wood firing, as the cover of my book in Korean translation falsely claims!

I manage it reasonably well, but each time I stoke and there is a little burst of pale grey/brown smoke from the chimney. There a howls of jeering from the kiln builders next door. However, although it is smoke, it is nowhere near the column of black smoke that issues from the traditional kilns here. Young Mi, one of the resident researches here translates for me during the firing. She tells me that the jeers are just in good humour, and that the chatter is all about how little smoke there actually is and how clean it is. I have surprised them. 

Another resident confides in me that he expected to see flames come leaping up out of the fire box as soon as I lifted the lid. He is also surprised how enclosed, slow and gentle the firing process is.

 These 4 images by Kim Young Mi.

I prepared 8 stacks of timber for the firing, expecting to use it all, but as it turned out, I only got to use just over half of it.  In the afternoon, when I go to look in the spy hole, all the little glaze rods have melted. The firing is over in just 9 hours. Too quick! I didn’t realise how fast the temperature was rising without a pyrometer. The colour in the chamber is still looking rather yellowish, and doesn’t have that bright pale glow that I’m used to. I wonder what temperature that glaze stick actually melts at? 

Note to self!  Next time I come here for a firing I’ll bring my own pyrometric cones and a hand held digital pyrometer.

The firing turns out OK. The glazes are pale, grey-blue celadons and off-white, grey/white guans. As I only burnt 4 stacks of wood, possibly 250 kgs of wood, there is no obvious ash deposit, just a little dusting of ash on the glazes facing the fire.

The bottom back shelf is under-fired, but I can remedy that by firing a bit slower and also adjusting the bag wall gaps and height. I hope to be invited back to fire it a couple of times in quick succession, at some later stage, to get to tune it and get an even temperature throughout.

Meanwhile, life goes on in the rest of the village, with the rice harvest in full swing, and autumn vegetables ripening in peoples gardens. I’d love to get in there and pick some of those beautiful vegetables.

Work has been progressing on the big kiln next door. It is more or less finished, but may need some extra work on it. I’m not too sure there. It will certainly need to be pre-fired to remove all the arch shuttering that is built into each of the 5 chambers. It’s a massive kiln!

Who knows if, or when I’ll be back? What does the future hold. Watch this space


Before I leave this beautifully creative place, I make my usual pilgrimage up the mountain to the ancient site where all the sericite porcelain stone was stock-piled in ancient times. The site has been tragically decimated by a local former. I imagine to stop it being declared an historic ‘National Trust’ site of importance? The whole site was bulldozed some years ago, but remnants remain in the soil. Particularly after heavy rains, the white stones stand out from the brown soil and are easily collected. I make a point of hiking up there and seeing what is available for me to collect. I return with 10 to 15 kgs of stones in my back pack and start the process of meticulously scrubbing the stones to remove any particles of dirt. Then I rinse then several times, until the water runs clear. Finally I soak them overnight in bleach to kill anything that might be harmful to the environment in Australia when I return. 

Back home, I put them through the jaw crusher and then into the ball mill and let the slurry sit and flocculate for a month or two, before stiffening and plastic ageing before use sometime next year.

K-Pot Journal 2

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Building my kiln went pretty easily. 

Because the kiln shed wasn’t finished on time, the team of 8 professional kiln builders that are contracted to build the massive North Korean designed 5 chamber kiln that is going in the new shed next to mine, are all sitting with nothing to do for a couple of days, as the slab for their kiln hasn’t even been cast yet. The slab for my kiln was cast the day before I arrived, but as they were still finishing the roof of the shed I wasn’t allowed on site because of the danger of falling objects. So nothing happened for the first day for any of us. We all went into the nearest big town half an hour away to buy groceries for the coming week.

There is almost nothing fresh available here in this little village. There is a junk food ‘convenience store’ that mostly sells soft-drinks, tinned coffee, beer and cigarettes, and a very small ’supermarket’ where you can drop off the first word and buy dried and canned foods that aren’t particularly super in degree or range.

No one sells fresh vegetables, and understandably so, as everyone here, with exception of the dozen museum staff and research students, is involved in farming vegetables. I suppose that they either grow what they need themselves, or swap with neighbours who do. Either way there is nothing fresh in the two tiny shops here.

In the bigger nearby town of Yanggu, there is a choice of bigger grocery shops and one real supermarket. We travel there and get a weeks supply of almost everything that we can think of, that we might need to feed ourselves for the coming week. We spend about $700 on these 3 trolleys of various food items. It even includes shoju and beer! I notice that they sell red wine in there. So return by myself while the others are loading the cars, and buy 4 bottles of red wine, mostly of cheaper origins like Chilean and South Africa There is nothing from Australia available. 

I don’t enjoy shoju at all, but quite like the fermented rice wine called makoli and the local beer, but I feel that there might be an occasion when there will be an opportunity to share some claret in the coming evenings together. It turns out that I’m spot on with this decision. The bottle doesn’t go very far when shared 9 ways!

The first day of brick laying, with many helpers goes really fast and I lay out the parameters for the design and using a string line and plumb bob weight, I make sure that the chimney will be directly below the roof opening. This laying out is the slowest part of kiln building. Getting everything square and level before we start. 

Many hands make light work and we lay the two floor layers in record time. I introduce these Korean professional kiln builders to ‘herring bone’ pattern floor bricklaying technique. They don’t seem to recognise what I’m doing, but using my phone and a translation app, I explain it to them as best that I can, and one of them googles/navers it and announces that it is called herring bone, and they all nod approval, discussing it in detail in Korean chatter as we work. This pattern helps to avoid any straight through cracks developing from left to right or front to back as the kiln shifts and moves as it expands and contracts during its firings. 

2 days later,  I notice that they have decided to use it in the base pattern of brickwork of their kiln foundations as well!

I get this unexpected extra manpower help with my brickwork, as the slab for the big kiln next door is not yet cast. In fact, the local builders are still relocating soil for the earth ramp of the man-made slope and then framing the formwork for the slab. Unbelievably, they get the freshly tamped earth roughly level and tamped down, then all framed-up with formwork and the cement cast by late in the afternoon. I’m pretty amazed by this fast work. However, I do notice that there is no steel mesh used in the slabs, and with it cast on top of freshly placed earth substrate, Will it crack in due course? I have no idea, but hope for the best. These Korean workers sure are fast. Going on this, I can only suppose that there is no steel in my slab either.

I am working flat out, as fast as I can to lay down bricks in their final positions to be laid with mortar seconds later, by one of my several helpers. They are professionals and are so quick. I’m hoping that I don’t make any mistakes working at this speed, as there is no room for any error. It gets particularly stressful when I have to lay out all the mouse holes and tertiary air inlets in under the floor and in the first layer of the walls. They need to be precisely positioned to work effectively, and I have no time to second guess if they are exactly right or not. working with four bricklayers calling for bricks keeps me thinking of four different parts of the kiln at once. Mouse holes, stoke holes, tertiary air inlets, flue holes and the door openings are all required in this first layer, and all at the same time. I’m used to working at a much slower pace and thinking everything through thoroughly. There is no time to think here at this speed. Luckily, I’ve done this before a time or two, so everything goes well.

By the end of the second day, we have the walls well and truely started and up a few courses. I have the luxury of having two of these  enthusiastic helpers dedicated to using both of the diamond saws, cutting the hard fire bricks to special sizes to facilities the special openings that  I need for the tertiary air inlets. These guys have never seen a kiln like this one with so many holes in it. Traditional wood kilns here are very basic in their construction, often, just straight through tunnels, or multiple chambers, one after the other with only the flue holes to think about. They keep asking me how it will all work, and I am at a loss to be able to explain the intricacies of the design to them with my limited Korean and just some charades to do the explaining. It will have to wait until dinner time, when I can get out my lap top and show them some images of finished examples.  Everyone here has a phone with a translation app. I’m constantly turning round to face a phone screen to talk into, to give yet another explanation of a detail in the brick laying pattern.

I briefly have these 7 blokes on my team, and there is just one bloke stripping the form work and measuring the step dimensions and figuring out the layout for the big North Korean designed kiln next door. The cement slab is still fresh, soft and still very wet.

The next day, They are all going flat out on the big kiln, sorting out the necessary steps up the slope and making sure that the first layers will match the brick dimensions needed to align with the next step of brickwork. It’s a massive job. The kiln will have 5 chambers and a huge firebox with two arched openings at the front. They waste no time, and with 8 skilled workers the job flies up.

I am left to work on slowly on my small kiln, with occasional help from one of the bigger kiln team and someone to cart bricks and cut special shapes on the diamond saw when necessary. We work well together, and there is a lot of laughter, good natured banter and good will towards me. At the end of each work session, there are more questions about how it will work. I suspect that they think that I’m a bit mad, or at least quite quirky, expecting the fire to burn up-side-down and not roast my head off as a soon as I open the stoke-hole lid in the top of the fire box. Fire always burns upwards in their experience.

None of them has read my book on downdraught fire box kilns that The Director here of the Research centre has had translated into Korean about 5 or 6 years ago. Not a big seller apparently, among the traditional wood kiln building community?

I ask Mr Jung, The Director of the Porcelain Museum and Research Centre, to bring a copy of the book over to the kiln site, the next time that he visits, he does and it is passed around at morning tea time. A couple of the guys flip through the pages, but I don’t think that any one actually reads it in any detail. After dinner, I get out my lap top and show them images of other projects like this one to help explain what I’m try to achieve.

I build an arch formwork and set it in place on a stack of firebricks, using hand cut special wooden wedges that I place on top to adjust the formwork to the exact level needed, and also to allow me to pull them out and drop the wooden form work down free of the finished brick arch, to allow me to slide the formwork out of the chamber. This excites a little bit of interest in a couple of the bigger team, as they don’t appear to have ever seen this before. 

I have read in older books, perhaps Leach’s Potters Book? That they just leave the form work in place in the big oriental kilns and burn it out later, before the first firing. I though that this was a bit wastefull. So I have never done this, always removing the formwork to be used again in another kiln in the future. When I tap out the wedges and drop the form work, there is a little intake of breath and a smile from Mr Kim who is assisting me at the time. He smiles broadly and taps me on the shoulder, thumbs up. He’s impressed. word spreads and my position in the social order rises slightly. At dinner, some one asks me how old I am. I tell them I’m 72, nodding all round. From this time onwards, I’m always ushered through doorways first and given the front seat in the car when we go somewhere. I’m accepted as one of them as a professional kiln builder, but I’m also the oldest member of the team. So as such I garner a little bit of extra respect as well.

I finish the brickwork on my kiln by the end of the week and start to engage with all the multitude of little jobs that are needed to complete the kiln. I need make a load of ceramic buttons to attach the ceramic fibre insulation to the firebox lids. I also need to get a local company to cut and fold some thin stainless steel sheet to make the fire box lids.

I ask to be given a lift into the bigger nearby town of Yanggu, to buy steel angle iron and round bar to weld on the bracing. It all goes pretty smoothly, and in a couple of days the kiln is all braced in steel. Using a little portable stick welder I slowly work my way around the kiln, cutting and fitting the pieces together. I haven’t used a stick welder for 20 years. I’m a bit rusty on it, but it soon comes back to me. I’ve only used much more modern MIG and TIG welders in my kiln business for the past couple of decades. I have been spoilt by their speed and convenience, but I manage.

In some miraculous way, I manage to weld the 10mm dia. steel rod handles onto the 0.8mm. thick, or should I say thin, stainless steel sheet lids, using the little stick welder. This isn’t normally possible. The heat needed to melt the 10mm steel handle, is far too hot for the thin sheet and would normally burn a hole clean through the thin sheet. I’m aware of this, so prefabricate a small piece of angle iron backing plate that I clamp inside the lid to absorb most of this excess heat. I do burn a couple of small holes through here and there, but mostly it works well and I get the impossible done before lunch. More kudos from the pros on site.

 They are treating me as an equal. It’s turning out to be a very good job.