Got reduction

I peeked the kiln yesterday, and came home depressed. I saw bad crawling, and the bottom looked oxidized. This have been the pattern last two years.

With my great surprise, I just lost three pieces with crawling, that I saw yesterday. Reduction, reduction and reduction. Bottom was lightly reduced, but reduced. This is the second time a whole kiln reduced in three years. Last time was in June, but I could not reproduce the effect then.

Firing a kiln has not been fun for a while. I became addicted to the pottery after watching the flame dance in the kiln. It was magical feeling, and just fascinating to watch the edge of pottery starts to melt. Last couple years, opening the kiln was not pleasant.  80%-85% of pottery came out of each kiln beautiful. But that 10 to 15% of loss was big problem for me. I threw the pottery knowing that is placed at the bottom shelves for oxidation.   Firing kiln was not fun recently.  More I changed the setting, the deeper the problem goes.  Just frustrating. Now I got the good firing! I hope this new setting brings me back the fun of firing.