These mice show the difference between the wood burning kiln & the paper kiln that was built at the Scottish Potters Association weekend. The brown one was fired in the kiln at Argyll Pottery & the black one from Kindrogan. 
The paper kiln was built by many volunteers over the weekend by rolling news paper & weaving it. It was then packed with sawdust & pots then more sawdust & pots until it was filled.
Then the lid was placed on & ready to light. The stray rolls of paper that's coming from the bottom is what you light to bring the flame into the bottom of the kiln & drawn up throughout.
The outside wall of the kiln kept its shape & the flames began to show through the centre. After the initial lighting of the kiln it all went quite fast as there was strong wind.
From lighting to emptying it only took a couple of hours, which was surprising when i got my mouse from the ashes & realised it must have went to at least 7/800 C
The paper kiln was a fun & interesting thing to do & see but the success rate of pots from the kiln wasn't that high. There was a few things that survived & had nice effects but don't think we will start using this method at Argyll :) all good fun though x
wow looks like a wild fire, you could get similar effects with a small sawdust in a barrel firing..less paper folding involved although that is half the fun..
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