Dealing with difficulties

I started the firing at approx. 6 am, it was cold and dark. The firing progressed nicely in the early stages and soon the sun was up. It turned into a really nice day with no wind. I begun to have trouble getting the temperature to rise at about 1100 C and approximately 10 hours into the firing. This was also compounded by the fact that white ants had eaten a lot of the wood I had split and stacked last summer (enough for two firings I thought!).  After trying a number of adjustments - I could not get past 1200 C and eventually resorted to raking out the coals from under the grate to increase the air flow. This was very hot work and once I had cleared the coals away I could see that I had lost two of my grate bars, one from each side. This was effecting the air flow into the kiln , however removing the coals did help the air get into the area under the remaining grate bars.The temp started rising and the cones started to bend. Opening up the primary air holes above the grate and feeding small pieces of wood helped to keep the temp rising. Soon the cones were over at the top and the bottom of the kiln (cone 12 flat at the top, bending at the bottom). I was finished in approx. 13 hours.

 

sunrise once the firing started

 

Kiln at top temp